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VPN Server - Is it necessary? Or Client is enough.

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2017 6:28 pm
by m2840
Hi,

I am new in this. Maybe somebody can help me. I am interested in providing a VPN Relay Server to VPN Gate users. Is it strictly necessary to install the SoftEther VPN Server, or is it sufficient to install the SoftEther VPN Client + VPN Gate Client Plug-in?

In the section "How to Provide Your Computer as a VPN Server for VPN Gate" it says: "After you activate the VPN Gate Service, anyone can connect a VPN connection to your computer, and access to any hosts on the Internet via your computer. VPN Client has also a tiny VPN Gate Service and it is equivalence [equivalent?] if you activate it manually." So, it looks like the Client is enough. Am I right?

I have installed Client and Server and "Enable the VPN Gate Relay Service and Join the VPN Gate Research as a Volunteer" in both of them. But it seems that there is some conflict, because the Dynamic DNS Function initially assigns hostname, IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, and then drops the IP's with an error message (in IPv4 it says something like: there was an error in the protocol).

Regards,
Rui Ferreira

Re: VPN Server - Is it necessary? Or Client is enough.

Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2017 7:05 pm
by Pandora-Box
Hi m2840,
I am not an expert, however I did some research regarding this issue you try to resolve.
It appears that vpn client is sufficient enough to run small built-in in it server as a vpngate, but once you enable it, it seems to loose vpn client function, at least I could not connect to any other vpngate server, once my client was running in a vpngate server mode (client mode change: http://www.vpngate.net/en/join_client.aspx).
You could also run vpngate mode on softether server, and use the client to browse other vpngate servers out there (server setup http://www.vpngate.net/en/join.aspx).
I would not run both server-vpngate mode on the server and on the client simultaneously (duplicate processes), and you would have to check your ddns names on the server and client for vpngate, but I think I got the same name in both cases.
Regarding "Protocol error occurred" message, I have similar situation: on one machine it is pretty steady and just grayed out, yet I got a ddns name assigned, on another machine it changes on and off from grayed out to active, with a different ddns name (on both SE server and SE client running as vpngate server mode), but of course not at the same time.
I have found one topic in this forum:
http://www.vpnusers.com/viewtopic.php?f ... red#p16016
that disabling UPnP helped, but I did not try it on my own router.
I saw some other users faced the same issue but there were no other solutions/fixes indicated regarding this "Protocol error occurred".
Also, it seems IPv6 protocol is disabled in the vpngate mode (not 100% sure), but it never showed connected on any machines with active IPv6 running vpngate mode (it was active on every SE server for vpn and azure).
Best luck
P-B

Re: VPN Server - Is it necessary? Or Client is enough.

Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:07 pm
by m2840
Thank you Pandora-Box.

In fact the VPN Client has a Server function. In any case I end up to install also the Softether VPN Server.
Like you said, I enabled the VPN Gate Relay Service only in one instance (the VPN Server).
Everything seems to be OK. I get clients connections.

I still get the "Protocol error occurred" message. My guess is that if the IP address is already registered with VPN, then if the VPN Server Service is restarted, it makes no sense to register again the same IP address. An example is if the PC is restarted but there is no change in the attributed IP address. Well, it is only a guess! Anyway, I don't see any consequence of this error message.

Cheers,
RF