Suggestions for PC to PC VPN software?

VPN
1

I’m sure everyone here at one point or another has received a call from someone in the field with an emergency issue. They have a laptop with internet and can plug it into the PLC but they don’t have software(or that’s the limit of their knowledge). It would be awesome if there was a soft VPN option where you can link your PC(that has the PLC software) to their PC that is on the PLC network so you can program the PLC remotely. Has anyone ever done anything like this?

I know the industry has devices like EWON for remote access or desktop sharing like teams. But obviously a EWON needs installed for that to be an option which isn’t always the case and screen sharing only really works if the person hosting has the needed software.

Anyone have any feedback on this??

2

I’m pretty sure you can do with with WireGuard, though it’s a bit complex to setup.

Tailscale is a commercial offering built on WG and might make it a bit easier. I think this is the configuration you’d be looking for: Subnet routers · Tailscale Docs

3

TeamViewer has a VPN style option that might work in this type of scenario.

4

Just use a VPN, or Wireguard/Tailscale as suggested in the comments.

What your asking for is adding complexity and doesn’t really exist compared to just using a VPN.

Or set up a VM with the software and leave it on a computer on site and remote into that.

5

I can’t think of any software that would do this. But there are plenty of VPN solutions out there. Any company that wants remote troubleshooting should get a vpn. However, oftentimes a programming laptop is all they can muster, which should have the proper software installed.

Windows server has a VPN server, but not plain Windows 10. There is probably a open source program that would do it. OpenVPN comes to mind, but it’s probably not practical to put on a laptop.

Easiest way is to use team viewer or the preinstalled “help me” program on windows.

6

I have tried this with Team viewer VPN but my PC has no way of connecting to the physical network connected on the customer PC. Tried bridging the virtual adapter and the physical hardware ethernet but I was unable to ping the PLC. Even tried a few cmd sricpts to bond the 2 networks but still no luck. Please advise if anyone has had success with team viewer VPN.

7

I was thinking TeamViewer as well.

8

I use the Teamviewer VPN for sharing my Rockwell licenses with PC at remote site.

Need to open firewall for the ports the software needs through the VPN connection.

9

+1 for tailscale, truly is as simple as they make it sound. It’s pretty easy to forward an entire subnet or specific IP if you need to

10

I was not able to make the Teamviewer VPN function work for this but I’d love to be proved wrong.

11

  1. VPN for Ethernet devices is easy, serial is trickier.

  2. I’d check with their IT as a lot of places don’t allow that.

  3. The ewon and stuff are usually running cellular plans and completely bypassing customers network.

12

Also never made it work.

If it works I would gladly pay TeamViewer.

13

I’ve set up the TeamViewer VPN on a few Windows 10 industrial PC HMIs and have remote access to a few Rockwell PLCs this way, with the added bonus of monitoring the HMIs while operators are using them. The best resource I found for setting it up was actually this pdf from Omron:

Omron TeamViewer VPN Setup

ETA: the biggest hangup I’ve had is that the gateway address in the PLC has to match the IP address of the device using TeamViewer. That means if you want to use the customer’s maintenance laptop for the PLC side of the VPN, you need to have already configured the PLC default gateway to the IP address used for programming. This isn’t necessary for EWONs or similar devices

14

I will definitely test this out this week. If it works, it is a relatively simple work around.