I’m contracting for a company, and to access their clients’ databases, I need a static IP, because each IP has to be individually whitelisted.
Since I have a dynamic IP (and since I might change addresses), they’ve told me that I should get NordVPN to get a static IP.
Based on past experience with databases, I expect that at some point I will have to log in to a client’s VPN to access their database. In this situation, I would need to first login to my own purchased NordVPN with a specific IP, and then log in to the client’s VPN to access their database. Is this even possible, if NordVPN is not on my router?
Additionally, I’m contracting for a US company while being located in Central Europe, and I worry that if I don’t use a US NordVPN specific IP to log in to some clients’ VPN network, even if they allow all US IPs, they will block my European IP.
Nord and other providers won’t give you a static IP. They are constantly cycling their addresses as they get flagged by Netflix and other sites as being a VPN.
Someone else suggested running your own on a rented cloud instance. That’s a pretty good option.
As far as multiple VPNs, routing can be a pain. You might have an easier time using a travel router that connects to your VPN.
But you can probably just have both VPNs running normally (i.e. not one within the other), and only route the required subnets over each to access the resources you need to get to via each.
Only snag would be if they have overlapping address space in the ranges you need to get to.
If you set up NordVPN with static IP address, you’ll need to make a VPN connection on a router to NordVPN, then connect your computer to the router and start the VPN connection to the company.
Though, even when I read that I thought that must be a rarity for a VPN to offer static IPs.
That being said the cost of the additional 13.00 a month is overpriced if you ask me. I have 2 VPS servers I got on Balckfriday last year from LowEndBox for 30-40 bucks a year for occasional data backup,or web automation or archiving YouTube video. The only reason theyre so high too is due to me needing the extra storage. I saw some smaller space openvz/kvm advertised for as low as 18 bucks a year. From their you can run whatever VPN software or Proxy you want and it’d be your jumpoff point
Regarding multiple VPNs – what is does routing mean, in this context? Would it not be possible to sequentially connect to the NordVPN and then connect to the client VPN, or does it require a more technically intensive procedure to nest a VPN connection in another?
You won’t need NordVPN if you go this route. Instead, your dedicated server will have the static IP. If you’re able to run whatever tools you need on the server you can just connect that to the client’s VPN and SSH/RDP into the server from your home connection.
If you absolutely need to run your tools locally to access the client’s database that’s doable too, but would require some extra setup to tunnel everything via the server which would be on the client’s VPN.
Oh that’s cool. Didn’t know Nord did that. Sounds like it would be static, and definitely your easiest option.
This is going to be a lot, but if you’re interested… “Routes” are what a computer uses to determine where it should send network packets in order to reach the destination IP address from the packet’s header. (On Windows, you can see your route table with the command “route print” - on MacOS, “netstat -nr” and on Linux, “ip route show”)
When you connect to a VPN, a specific route to the VPN server is installed, pointing at the non-VPN interface and gateway. Once connected, the “default” route (0.0.0.0/0) is updated to point at your VPN’s Virtual interface. When your computer sends a packet to the internet, the default route sends that packet to the VPN virtual interface. The VPN software wraps it up and creates a new packet, which is sent “normally” across the internet to the VPN server because of that one specific route.
Now two VPNs gets fun. Your second VPN server’s route needs to point at the first VPN’s interface, and your default route needs to point at the second VPN… it becomes a mess quickly, and because most VPNs don’t plan on you doing this, you’re kinda on your own.
A travel router is basically a little computer that stays connected to your “outer” VPN. By plugging your computer into it for internet, you are automatically routed via the first VPN. You can then install the second VPN on your computer like normal, and the double-tunnel thing happens without any fussing.
Thank you for the comprehensive explanation! That makes a lot of sense.
I’ll get NordVPN to get the static IP, and then if the situation comes up that I need to connect to a client VPN, I’ll install a second router with my NordVPN IP configured and use the client VPN on my computer. I’ve heard this hurts performance/speed, but I guess it’s fast enough for sending and receiving the results of SQL queries.
