My VPN wont' work over 4G, but will over my home WiFi

Matt Walter

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Mar 10, 2015
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Hi all, I recently set up a VPN using windows server. It is running DHCP and DNS, and works fine. The VPN also works fine when I connect on my local network, but when I try over 4G it does not work... any ideas? Ta
 
Solution
Please define 'Does not work' (error code?)

Also when you say 'local network' You mean at home ? with the VPN server being at another location (like at work) ?

Assuming you did the port forwarding correctly on the router..... then it is also possible that your mobile phone carrier does not allow VPN connections over its data (3G in your case) network.

pauls3743

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The thing about VPN is that it's meant for a roaming pc to be able to connect to your home network from a remote location. Your PC has no bother connecting to vpn while it is within your home network because it is directly connected to your server. Home wifi is still within your home network so it doesn't have any trouble either. In fact, your home network is the one place you have no need for vpn.

When you connect to 4G you're connecting to the internet, which opens up a whole lot of problems. You need some mechanism to route the traffic from your pc to the location of your vpn server, I use a domain name with a static IP address. There are also dynamic dns services which can do this as well if you can't get a static IP address. If you don't want to buy and maintain a domain name you could always use services like Hamachi which act as bridges between your network and you remote pc (they're another form of vpn but I think they only need an account).

The last thing you may need to do is to configure your modem/router to port forward. This means punching a hole in your internet firewall and directing certain traffic from the internet to one of the computers on your internal network. If you're using the Windows vpn you need to forward port 1723 to the IP address of your vpn host (it will look something like 192.168.0.21). You may also need to forward a service called GRE to your vpn host server.
 

Matt Walter

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Mar 10, 2015
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4,540
Hi Paul's, I have my server setup with a static IP address, it also is running DHCP and DNS. I also did the port forwarding and I put in a domain name at some point as well. Thanks
 

pauls3743

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Assuming you're running the server at home, which IP address did you enter into the vpn client on your desktop? The IP address of you server or the external IP address of your router? It should be you router's external IP address.

When I was talking about domain name I meant "example.com" and using one of the online dns registers to point it to your router's external IP address.
 

Lee-m

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Jan 27, 2009
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Please define 'Does not work' (error code?)

Also when you say 'local network' You mean at home ? with the VPN server being at another location (like at work) ?

Assuming you did the port forwarding correctly on the router..... then it is also possible that your mobile phone carrier does not allow VPN connections over its data (3G in your case) network.
 
Solution