Hi all, I’m hoping someone can help out with this.
I have a homelab running a few different VMs. One of these is a Windows Server in which I run all my Plex stuff, because of this, I connect to a CyberGhost VPN for downloading purposes. I have noticed that I am unable to RDP into this server from outside my home network only when a VPN connection is established.
I was just curious from a networking perspective as to why this might happen?
I was under the impression the VPN should only affect outbound connections from the server. I’ll probably just set up a separate Windows server to act as a jump-host anyway (or get a vpn server running which is probably a better idea) but I’m still curious about this.
how do you connect in order to RDP from outside the network? is it through your public IP? if so, you would need to a policy to NAT RDP traffic outside of the VPN.
Yes, I use a dynamic DNS url and forward 3389 from the router to the private IP of the VM. Can you explain what purpose the NAT policy would serve?
ok first
dont do that. its very bad to have 3389 open. atleast randomize the port, but you really should not use RDP directly on the internet.
if you arent in an enterprise environment with an RDP gateway RDP should not be used without a VPN.
but if you must, atleast use a non standard random port
I went through some documentation and it does not look like GhostVPN through the desktop app can have a policy routed by protocol or port number. Just by app or web URL.
maybe if you are using ghost VPN through your router?
Ok righto, I did consider using a different port but was just curious as to the root cause of this first. I will give up on this idea now and configure a VPN server on another VM to get into the network.