[SOLVED] Question regarding VPN and Gaming

[kinadafz]

I work from home and often times i'll want to start up a game to play while on break, lunch, waiting between calls, etc.

However, all of my games do not work when i'm connected via vpn, i have to disconnect VPN, then load up game.

is there a way to setup a couple tunnels, one is the VPN which is just my remote desktop traffic, then all other traffic go out non vpn? or, once I'm connected via vpn, does all traffic have to go through that connection?

 

[bill001g]

VPN to your work office. Who controls the vpn.

Many companies force all traffic to go to the vpn tunnel.

The risk is say you are a stupid idiot and allow incoming session from the internet. When vpn into a company the incoming session could get to the company internal network using your machine as the connection point.

Most company networks are not protected from a hacker that is on the internal network. All the security effort is generally on the firewalls. Someone with a misconfigured VPN bypasses all this fancy firewalls.

So if your company is smart they will prevent you from doing this. If you do attempt it just be aware it is your security skills that are now protecting the company network. It is not actually that hard to do on most clients if they have support for split tunnel. Best if you put in very very narrow rules.

 

[Math Geek]

last time i needed to do something like this, i made a vm for the work stuff. had the vpn, monitoring software and all that work stuff installed only on it. i only used it for work, and not needing massive pc power the vm easily handled the running applications.

then the rest of the system was mine to do with what i wanted. work on the vm and one screen and play on main system and second monitor and it was easy to... let's call it..."multi-task" 😉

 

[kinadafz]

Thats essentially what I do - i remote into a virtual VM PC at work through the VPN. Our work does limit only RDP traffic to go through the tunnel, but i want to somehow tell my home PC that any non RDP traffic should not go through VPN, but through regular inet connection instead. Not sure if i can do that or not, but would love to "multi task" also. We use Forticlient for our VPN.

What's wierd is i'm able to connect via VPN, i can stream music, browse web, youtube, basically anything web based. But, the moment i try to do anything that involves any type of game, it craps out. Some games allow me to VPN connect, all good, but when i zone it crashes.

 

[bill001g]

It would be more a vm on your home machine not the remote end. I guess it depends on if the work machine vm is completely isolated from the company data. Then again if that was true you generally don't need the company machine, it is the access to the data that tends to be the reason for remote access.

The risk is always that you somehow expose the company data. Many companies will not even allow personal machines access since simple malware could get into the company network just by have invalid software on the machine that has the open vpn tunnel.

If you use a VM on the remote machine and run the vpn inside that it tends to solve many of the security issues because nothing from the main machine should be able to affect traffic in the vm.

I have not used the foriclient but like many of these commerical solutions they have the ability to lock them down very tightly. It all depends on how your company has configured this and if they have left any option to change stuff. A lot of times these clients are configured via the central appliance when you connect. They can do stuff like check your machine to be sure you have the correct patched vpn client and even windows patches. It can also set all the rules for routing of traffic when you connect form the central server.

So "maybe?" you can change this to use split tunnel.

It might be easier to load a vm just for the vpn usage. Since the vpn is in the VM it can not see the other traffic and in general this also solves most the security issues since you are in effect using a different machine for your vpn and your games.

 

[Math Geek]

yah that's what i am saying. run a VM from your home pc with the vpn and other needed work software. it will do whatever it does to your vm, but it will not effect the rest of the pc running anything you want it to run.

your work vpn will run like always and no matter how it is restricted that only effects the traffic from your VM and not the rest of the pc. this creates a second internet connection for the work vm to run through, ignoring the traffic created by the host pc.

this is essentially creating the dual traffic you want without any of the headaches. just leave the vm for only work purposes and nothing else will be effected. have the vm screen on one monitor and your main desktop on a second screen and you got the best of both worlds. it is literally like having 2 separate pc's on your desk at once. one for work and the other for play.

the vm does reserve whatever resources you give it so make sure your system has enough to split between the 2.

so an 8 core cpu with 4 cores given to the vm only has 4 left over for the main pc when the vm is running. those 4 cores will get reserved and only accessible to the vm. same goes with ram given to it. do keep that little bit in mind when creating the vm

 

[kinadafz]

I see, that all make sense. We have the VPN locked down pretty good because everything that was said. the tunnel is supposed to only allow rdp traffic, which is our sort of "lockign down". so, if my home PC is infected, that infection can't jump to our network at work as it isn't going through RDP. i was hoping there was something i could on my home network to create, like, two ip's or something and somehow tell vpn to go through IP A, and everything else through IP B.

So, for a home VM, i'll look into that. What is solution everyone uses for home usage? What program? I'd need the ability for the VM to span across 3 monitors, then the VM to be able to RDP and span 3 monitors again (virtual to virtual connection basically).

The only thing teh VM needs in terms of programs is the vpn and rdp, nothing else is passed through the tunnel, it's all on my virtual PC in the office.

 

[Math Geek]

virtualbox is the easy free solution for vm's.

you basically create a new vm and install windows to it like normal. install and configure it as needed and power it up when you need.

the vm stays isolated from the rest of the system. it only sees the hdd you create for it and nothing else unless you give it access through folder shares or other methods. i use vm's a lot to infect them with virus's and malware to see how they work. i never worry about it moving to the rest of the system. works the same in the other direction. the only thing that can damage your vm is if the drive it is on fails or gets encrypted with some ransomware or the vm's data is otherwise rendered inaccessible.

i do maintain a separate physical disk for my vm's. since your host pc is using the hdd and the vm is also using the drive, this can slow things down at times. ssd's are faster but can still be effected if everything is asking for data at once. so a cheap small ssd is ideal for the vm to live on so you're not fighting for resources while multi-tasking.

remember the VM is a complete OS running along side your host system. it uses ram and other resources the same as any other OS. if it's windows then all those background tasks and such are running on the VM just like any other windows install.

you can use multiple monitors for the VM, but it has to be enabled. i'd have to google it but i am sure you can use google just as well

 

[kinadafz]

awesome, thanks for the info - i'll do some research on virtualbox and may end up goign that route. resources won't be a problem, i have a high end gaming rig, i can spare 8 gb of ram and 100 gb hd space

 

[Math Geek]

i tend to give a windows vm 4 cores and 8 gb ram. nothing fancy but enough to run it easy enough. sounds like you got plenty to go around

it's easy to use so should only take a few minutes to get that first vm installing.

 

[kinadafz]

yup, i'm up and running now, 3 monitors for VM, 3 monitors for RDP inside VM, now just to play around with the CPU cores a little to make it a tad smoother, but all in all, fantastic, thank you!

 

[Math Geek]

glad it seems to work for you.

i'm all about the VM's i run 3 or 4 at a time quite often to keep everything i am doing separate.

 

[gggplaya]

yup, i'm up and running now, 3 monitors for VM, 3 monitors for RDP inside VM, now just to play around with the CPU cores a little to make it a tad smoother, but all in all, fantastic, thank you!

Time to upgrade to a 16 core Ryzen 5950x.