RE: VPN & web enabling applications

["Brian James" <bjames@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi John et al,

<SNIP>

The one caveat about VPNs: Any internet access done while a VPN is
connected will generally route to the internet through the VPN.  So if
your clients VPN to you and then go surfing to Yahoo, download movie
trailers, whatever, it'll use your bandwidth.  We instituted a severe
restriction on internet access through the VPN.

- John

</SNIP>


This behavior is caused by the way the VPN client is configured and not a
problem of VPN itself. The windows VPN client defaults to "use default
gateway on remote network" which is the cause for this behavior. Cisco's VPN
client also has a similar setting. To allow for Web surfing, multiple
simultaneous VPN connections, or other internet access without going through
the VPN tunnel just uncheck the "use default gateway on remote network"
option on the VPN client.

To make this change on a Win2K VPN connection, double-click on the
connection icon and press the properties button. Then, under the networking
tab, highlight TCP/IP protocol and press the properties button. From the
TCP/IP properties window press the advanced button and finally uncheck the
"use default gateway on remote network" option.

I've only had one occasion where not having this option checked caused me a
problem. It was with a client that had their iSeries on a different subnet
than their VPN server. A simple "route add" statement pointing to their core
router corrected the problem.

Kind regards,

Brian