SoftEther VPN User Forum

Hello!

I'm new to SoftEther and I want to make a VPN connection from my office to my home computers(few of them). I'm having some trouble with setting up SoftEther and I hope somebody could help me with this.

The thing is, I installed SoftEther Server on a computer at home, there I configured it, made a new user for connection, created port forwarding rules to all the ports (Also side question, is it possible to use only one port? Or maybe change the ports? Since I disabled port 443 since I'm already using it for a different program?), and at the end, I activated the VPN.

Next thing I did is downloaded SoftEther Client on my computer at Office, connected to the VPN, and it was successful, BUT when I try to ping any computer at home (No matter if I try to ping the server or another computer) I get messages in CMD that the host is unreachable and sometimes that request has timed out. But, when I type "ipconfig" there is an adapter with the correct address DHCP.

Please guys help me with this. This now is just a test how it works because soon we will have a project at work that we will have to use SoftEther VPN, so I got tasked to test it and research it a bit(We are not using Windows built-in VPN because of the clients' router is not supporting it, even provider said, and they said something along the lines that there are plenty of programs to use, so I decided SoftEther would be a good choice).

Also, one thing I think I should mention, both computers that I'm testing on are using Windows 10 Pro, BUT there is something I noticed that I'm not sure it matters or not. My office PC (with SoftEther Client) is using AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, and I noticed that you have to choose a CPU architecture when you are downloading SoftEther, could this be the reason that it does not work?

Thank you in advance for reading this and for any help.

How do you know you really connected to the vpn server at home?
Do you have a local bridge on server at home connecting vpn hub to desired subnet?
Vpn server is impossible to ping. It is a feature.

Hi! Thanks for the reply, I figured it out. After connecting 2 computers to the server with clients, it worked like a charm.

But do you know by any chance, I enabled SecureNAT DHCP, does this mean that now 1 user gets always the same IP?

I do not use securenat. It warns about instability and I did experienced it. The connection always dropped after some minutes. Just read warning when you enable it.

Ok, I'll disable it, thanks.

But the question is still, Will the computer (based on MAC or even user maybe) get always the same IP? This is kinda important to me. I tried connecting and disconnecting in various patterns, and it was always the same IP on the same computer, also, tried to set my network adapter inside the Control Panel to the desired IP address, and it was always that address, so that works, can I just put a static IP without the secureNAT then? What are my Gateway, mask and DNS then?

(as you can tell I'm not the best with networks, sorry if the above is a stupid question)

sky59 wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 1:36 pm

I do not use securenat. It warns about instability and I did experienced it. The connection always dropped after some minutes. Just read warning when you enable it.

SecureNAT is mandatory, it seems, at least on OpenBSD? My VPN client cannot connect to Internet (but connects to vpn server) without SecureNAT is enabled. How can you do that?

Thanks.

OpenVPN is stupid in the same way: impossible to use static IP (or veeery difficult) and without dhcp server also does not connect, so I have a real router with dhcp server enabled, do not use securenat if you eant to be idiot-proof

sky59 wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 2:14 pm

OpenVPN is stupid in the same way: impossible to use static IP (or veeery difficult) and without dhcp server also does not connect, so I have a real router with dhcp server enabled, do not use securenat if you eant to be idiot-proof

*OpenBSD Operating System. Not OpenVPN.

I thought bsd system has got its own vpn client which you want to use. You were not clear in explanation what you do. I believed you understand OS has nothing to do with vpn.

Then use softether on bsd and you have no problem.

You guys suggest not having SecureNAT enabled, then how come does your VPN Client get IP address from SoftEther Server?

In my case, I had IP and Internet access ONLY when I enabled it.

deksar wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 10, 2021 9:53 pm

You guys suggest not having SecureNAT enabled, then how come does your VPN Client get IP address from SoftEther Server?

In my case, I had IP and Internet access ONLY when I enabled it.

have a physical dhcp server on the subnet, it will provide IPs to every device

Physical DHCP Server? I think this is impossible because my VPN Server is only a VPS I rent remotely. I connect it from home.

Anything else I could do? And why enabling SecureNAT is not good?

deksar wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 11, 2021 8:35 am

Physical DHCP Server? I think this is impossible because my VPN Server is only a VPS I rent remotely. I connect it from home.

Anything else I could do? And why enabling SecureNAT is not good?

enable it and read warning you get

There is no warning?

VPN Server/DEFAULT>SecureNatEnable
SecureNatEnable command - Enable the Virtual NAT and DHCP Server Function (SecureNat Function)
The command completed successfully.

I have a new question that is probably part of this topic too.

So here I have an example and please tell me if this is possible or not.

I have a server in a local network(lets call the network LAN1) and in that network there are 5 computers + the server, and that server has SoftEther Server installed. Then, on another computer that is part of a different network LAN2, I install SoftEther Client, and connect to that SoftEther Server in LAN1. Is it now somehow possible to access every PC in LAN1 from LAN2 without having to install SoftEther Client on every PC in LAN1? Basically, can SoftEther work like traditional VPN?(but I cannot use traditional Windows VPN on the server because it has some problems with the router)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You want to make peer2peer connection between clients computers?

What is it "to access" computers in Lan1 from Lan2??

Well yes, but without installing a SoftEther Client on every computer in LAN1