vlan & rdp access

[ckl_88]

Hello.

I'm running the freshtomato firmware 2019.3 and I have a simple setup on my AC66u_b1 router.

I have vlan1. vlan2 (WAN) and vlan3. vlan1 is basically all my home devices. vlan3 is my work computer. All computers are windows 10.

What I'm trying to do is have my work computer headless and have my home computer (on vlan1) remote desktop into the work computer and do my work like that. When I setup it up this way, it works. I can RDP into the work computer and do things. Then when I had to initiate a VPN connection to the office to get some files, the RDP connection drops out and I can no longer get to the work computer.

Now as a test, I took the work computer out of vlan3 and put it onto vlan1 where all my home devices are then tried it again. This time it worked. I could VPN into the office while remote desktop into it at the same time.

So the question is there something I need to do in order to keep the work computer on vlan3 and be able to RDP and VPN at the same time?

Thanks.

 

[dave14305]

You need to find out if the VPN client allows/does split tunneling. If not, your RDP return traffic would route out through your VPN to your company network.

 

[coxhaus]

I agree split tunneling is probably the problem. When you move your work computer to VLAN1 there is no routing between the home computer and the work computer. It is only layer2. Spilt tunneling is a security risk for work. It opens a direct pipe into work which bypasses the work's firewall as you can be connected to the internet through your ISP at the same time.

 

[ckl_88]

My company is not too serious about security as it's still using PPTP as VPN. Don't ask me why as I don't have control over this even though I've expressed my opinion many times. Anyway, the VPN and RDP functionality is all through MS Windows 10 builtin software if that helps. No third party tools. So from what I've found on the Internet that split tunneling may be doable, but I'm going to give up on this. From the time I flashed Tomato a day ago, the router has randomly rebooted about 4-5 times. I don't think it has been up more than 2 hours at a time when in use. I can't handle that kind of instability at the moment. On the other hand, the merlin firmware has been rock solid so I'm going back.

 

[coxhaus]

Split tunneling is a VPN option. Or it was back when I was running Cisco VPN.

Tomato OS was good a long time ago but it has been lost for many years.