How to use VPN to connect two PCs that are on different public internet network to the same network as if they were on LAN

VPN
1

Hi All,

I have two Windows 10 Pro PCs.

One is my home workstation and the other is my on-the-go Laptop.

My use case is that when I am on the go, I want to access my home workstation and its connected network. For example - I have a raspberry pi device connected to my Wifi - and from my Home workstation I can ssh into it and work as they are on the same network.

While I am on the go, I want to have the same access. I.e, I want to turn on my laptop on the go - ssh into the raspberry pi device while I am on a completely different public internet.

I have been trying to get my head wrapped around OpenVPN and their Remote Access Guide - but looks like I am missing something.

Has anyone attempted this?

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Edit:

So I have sorted this using SoftEther. https://www.softether.org/4-docs/2-howto/1.VPN_for_On-premise/1.Ad-hoc_VPN

I can now just type in my raspberry pi private IP [ 192.168.x.x ] on my on the go laptop, and ssh in! woohoo!

I also tried Tailscale - though it is connecting the 2 PCs, my PCs are getting an IP 100.x.x.x. My firewall is treating this as an connection coming from the public internet.

Tailscale is letting my two PCs be connected, but looks like they are on a separate network to my local LAN.

I would probably also need to install Tailscale on my raspberry pi to have it on the same network as my Home PC.

So for now I am going to use SoftEther. Thanks Guys!

2

Tailscale. Seriously, it’s all you need.

3

For now I have got it working with SoftEther.

Wasted 10 hours today trying to tinker with OpenVPN :frowning: damnit.

Looks like it’s open source and free. Though the UI looks a bit dated.

OpenVPN documentation really needs some work - I am not a network engineer, and making sense of their docs was doing my head in. :frowning:

Also user u/e-a-d-g has suggested Tailscale. That one looks nice too, I am going to try that too.

4

I use OpenVPN setup on my Synology. Works great. When remote I open that, pop in my creds and boom, I’m inside my network. I can then html into any device on my network or rdp to a local workstation. Same from my phone.

5

An update - tried out Tailscale today
It is connecting the 2 PCs, my PCs are getting an IP 100.x.x.x.

My firewall is treating this as a connection coming from the public internet. Had to explicitly turn on rules to let inbound connection from the internet for testing RDP.

Tailscale is letting my two PCs be connected, but looks like they are on a separate network to my local LAN.
I would probably also need to install Tailscale on my raspberry pi to have it on the same network as my Home PC.
So for now I am going to use SoftEther. Thanks Guys!

6

You say you want to access your home workstation and connected network when remote.

Why wouldn’t you consider a VNC solution like RealVNC Connect? It will give access as though you are sitting at the PC keyboard and monitor.

I need to access apps and app data remotely, generally not available through HTML. Quicken is a prime example where data and app need to be on the same machine (at least the implementation of Q that I use).