Possible to map a NAS when on VPN?

[glchen]

Sorry, for the newbie question. I recently purchased a Synology DS409. When I am at home, but login to my work VPN, I am unable (obviously) to view the other devices on my local network, including the NAS. Do you know if there is some configuration on the Synology (such as iscsi or something?) where I can still map a drive to the NAS even when I'm on the VPN? It would be nice to be able to be able to access files from the NAS. Thanks!

 

[arkay71]

@glchen: I've had to deal with the same problems before. I don't know if there is a hardware solution others more experienced than me can recommend but I've used static routes in windows XP, Vista and 7 with good success in the past. It may be that your company have controls in place to block this (normally a quarantine process running on your machine as part of the VPN connection). As a general rule though corporate network admins get a bit shirty about trying to bypass their split-tunnelling restrictions.

However, it costs nothing to give it a go. Here's how in Windows XP or higher:

1. Make sure the VPN is NOT connected
2. Open a command prompt (hit start; type cmd in the run or search box)
3. You'll need to know the IP address of your router gateway and your NAS box and your subnet mask - let me know if you don't know how to get this...
4. type the following: route ADD your_NAS_ip_address MASK your_network_mask your_gateway_ip_address -p

This will add a static route which will be persistent (it'll survive reboots). Give it a try and see if it works for you. Here's an example:

NAS IP: 192.168.1.99
Gateway IP: 192.168.1.254
Subnetmask: 255.255.255.0

*Tip: you can get your gateway and subnet mask by typing IPCONFIG /all and seeing what your current connection is using - it'll be the same if you're using a simple home network like me.

route ADD 192.168.1.99 MASK 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.254 -p

If this doesn't work you could always try asking your company network admins if they permit split-tunnelling on certain subnets. For example, some allow this is you use a DHCP pool within the company range (e.g. I use 16.x.x.x as my company owns this range thus net admins are happy to allow split-tunnelling on that sub-net when connected to the VPN).

Hope this helps and I'm sure others can correct any mistakes or provide other solutions - I'm by no means an expert!

 

[glchen]

Thanks for your help. I'll definitely try this.