A Question(s) about a Home VPN & Networking

[Tek-Nuub]

So I checked out a couple of the threads on here and didn't seem to have the answers I was looking for so now I seek technical knowledge.

1. I know that a VPN is basically an encrypted tunnel from point A to point B. However, I am soon to get a nighthawk with tomato firmware so that I can connect to my network remotely. If I was to VPN on my network to connect to my server, which address would I use to RDP into, the external IP or the internal IP of the server?

2. If I were to use the "Wake Up On Lan" functionality to power on mt server and then remote in with RDP, how would I be able to login to my server? From my experience using RDP locally, I was not able to login with on the login screen from my laptop RDPing onto my desktop. If that isn't able to be done, is there any program/application that can be used to login to a computer on your home network remotely?

 

[bill001g]

You can not RDP from you laptop to your server when you have it connected on the lan ?

When you use a VPN your laptop would get a ip on your lan just as if it was connected locally.

Wake on lan is not wake on WAN. There is really no such thing, lots of hacks to try to make it work but it is messy. Some routers you can log into the router and ask the router to issue the wake on lan packet.

If you do not care a huge amount about the security you can use teamviewer to get to it. The issue is mostly how much do you trust teamviewer company to be able to see what you are doing. It is free to use it for what you are planning.

 

[TechBoi-215]

You can not RDP from you laptop to your server when you have it connected on the lan ?

When you use a VPN your laptop would get a ip on your lan just as if it was connected locally.

Wake on lan is not wake on WAN. There is really no such thing, lots of hacks to try to make it work but it is messy. Some routers you can log into the router and ask the router to issue the wake on lan packet.

If you do not care a huge amount about the security you can use teamviewer to get to it. The issue is mostly how much do you trust teamviewer company to be able to see what you are doing. It is free to use it for what you are planning.

Thanks for your response Bill

1. No that's not what I was trying to say, what I meant was on the login screen where you type in your password, I cannot connect to my desktop from my laptop on the same network. I don't know if that's possible but then again I don't know

2. So since the Nighthawk itself has a VPN function built in, it would assign a remote computer connected through the VPN a local IP address as if I were at home?

3. I guess I'm still not understanding here, I know that magic packets are sent to a computer through wake up on lan. However, does Wake Up On Lan work when the computer is completely shut down but is connected to a power source?

 

[bill001g]

Not sure I use remote desktop all the time.

You will get a local IP address.

Wake on lan is a special function where the computer is off except for the nic card. Still wake on LAN means exactly that some machine on the lan that is fully functional must send the special packet to the computer that is "off". I am not sure if you can send wake on lan though a vpn. It is a very special packet and the vpn client may not support it.

 

[TechBoi-215]

Not sure I use remote desktop all the time.

You will get a local IP address.

Wake on lan is a special function where the computer is off except for the nic card. Still wake on LAN means exactly that some machine on the lan that is fully functional must send the special packet to the computer that is "off". I am not sure if you can send wake on lan though a vpn. It is a very special packet and the vpn client may not support it.

If you have the computer powered off (I mean shut down) does the NIC still stay on as long as the computer has power?

 

[bill001g]

Yes that is what the feature does if you have it turned on in the bios. Just like there are lights on some motherboards when it is shutdown. As long as the power supply is in the on position and the option is enable the nic chip will have power. Many times even the lights on the nic will stay on but it depends on the motherboard.