# My first VPN - Am I dense?



## jccbin (Apr 21, 2017)

For my home office I'm putting in a VPN. What I want to enable is remote access from a laptop or other computer, elsewhere in the world.

I've got a win2k8 server, multiple available ethernet ports, a TPLink r600VPN, a DSL modem/router.

The TP link setup is defeating me, and I'm almost sure its ignorance of terms and/or its limitations.

This device offers IPSec VPN. When I go to set it up, the instructions make sense for the various kinds of encryption, etc, but it starts asking for local IP ranges (ok, got that 192.168.0.0/24), local gateway (is that the cable modem's internal IP or external IP?) and then it wants the remote IP or domain.... Well, I'm never going to know that, and that's my point. Is there a *.* option that basically says the incoming connection might be from anywhere? 


I want to be able fire up a VPN client, have it jump to the static IP of the exterior side of my DSL modem, that DSL modem send the incoming info to the TPlink ina DMZ, and then somehow authenticate/authorize so the remote user can then use Remote Desktop to access the server.

I'd like to set up two laptops to do this (only one at a time).

I read on various sites all about setting up VPN router to VPN router connections but that's not what I want, at least not as I see it.

Please point me to a how-to. 

THank you.
JC


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## pcride (Jan 29, 2016)

Honestly you are better off getting a Watchguard Firewall device and putting this in front of your network, the watchguard has built in VPN profiles for all sorts of encryption and it works really good.

IF you are just enabling the windows server to accept VPN connections, you are assuming a lot of risk. You need to consider other firewalls and protections.

If you are talking about the TP Link device hosting the VPN, thats a different story. Iphone/ios won't accept PPTP protocol anymore, you must use IPSEC or L2TP if accessing from IOS.

You need to get every setting just right for it to all work. Yes your gateway will be the public IP in your case. If you are just connecting, I would limit the IP range to only 1 or 2 in the VPN when you configure the DHCP.

There should be a set up guide for the TP device online for how to do this.

Also to note, unless your ISP has a big upload speed (most don't) then you'll find that VPN into your home will be slow to not working. I have a 20 MB upload and it still took forever to download basic files.

In the end your better off using Cloud services like drop box, amazon etc...


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