[SOLVED] Windows 10 dual, dissimilar WAN network access

[Pyneappel]

I live in a somewhat rural area where the fastest internet I could get until earlier this year was 10mbps down/1mbps up DSL. I now also have the newer trashcan version of the TMobile Home Internet (speed varies, avg maybe 80mbps down/30 up). one issue with the TMobile though is there is no NAT control on the router for things like DDNS, port forwarding, etc. In the past (other places I have lived before this one) I have set up VPN and VNC to access at least one server on the LAN remotely when I am away. Also, in the past, I have used LogMeIn, which might work for my scenario/question below, but their price has gotten way excessive for the product.

My question is, the server I would like to get some remote access to has an itx mobo with wifi and one NIC rj-45 port. The single PCIe slot is needed for an HBA controller. It is running Windows 10 but I am possibly open to changing to Linux if that helps anything for this. Is there some way I can configure this box to mainly use the TMo when I am home, but still respond to VPN/VNC requests from the internet when I am away?

I haven't bonded connections (except back in ISDN days), but assumed I wouldn't want to do that? How would I ensure the reply traffic goes back with the DLS's IP address?

Remote access can be disabled when I am home, but the process to turn it on and off should be easy and reliable. I suppose I could turn wifi on and off and plug and unplug cables, but don't really want 20 minutes of config and testing before and after every trip. I also was hoping that I would be able to make some use of that TMo speed remotely, even if it wasn't for the VNC/VPN. For example, log in via VNC, open Chrome, start large download like Android SDK or something, ... and that uses the TMo connection to do the download.

Thanks for any help, as you can tell from the above I know just enough to be dangerous.

 

[InvalidError]

You can have multiple LANs and set your default gateway to use the interface that connects to TMo so it uses that by default. On a different subnet, you can have your DSL with DDNS that you should be able to remote-login through.

On Windows, one NIC can have two IPs associated with it, so you could set things up to run both services over a single adapter using different subnets. You would need to setup one of the networks using static LAN IPs since you need to disable the DHCP server on the 2nd connection to avoid computers randomly joining either network.

Having only your main internet access using DHCP conveniently takes care of setting the default gateway so you won't need to worry about it..

 

[Pyneappel]

You can have multiple LANs and set your default gateway to use the interface that connects to TMo so it uses that by default. On a different subnet, you can have your DSL with DDNS that you should be able to remote-login through.

Interesting. I didn't know that was possible, I'll look into it. So I see something about a SkipAsSource flag; I would set that to True for the second/DSL/RAS IP?

 

[bill001g]

You can't really bond the connections. With enough effort you can use 2 internet connections for 2 different purposes. You can not for example us 2 internet to increase the download speed but it would work for example to watch netflick on one and everything else on the other.

There are a couple ways to do this but when you only have a single port you are best off putting both routers on the same network. Lets say your tmobile is your main network. You would let it be the DHCP server and run like normal. Lets say it uses 192.168.0.1. On your second router you would assign 192.168.0.2, disable the dhcp server and connect a cable between the lan ports of both routers. You now have 1 network with 2 internet connections.

What you would then do in the PC is to use the ROUTE command for traffic using the secondary IP. You would do

ROUTE ADD ip.ip.ip.ip mask 255.255.255.255 192.168.0.2

The tricky part is getting the list of IP addresses using the secondary connection. It becomes unmanageable if the list is large.

This might work for you if can somehow always know where the remote connection is coming from.

Some other options would be to use a router that has a VPN server function on it on the DSL connection. You would still set the 2 routers up the same way but you would not have the messy ROUTE command....at least associated with the vpn you would still need it if you wanted to use the DSL for other internet stuff.

You could also use a get a dual internet router. These also can run the VPN function. These work best for primary/backup internet. You can put in lists of IP addresses to use different internet. It is the same hassle as the ROUTE command but it is on the router so if you have mulitple devices you only have to set it on the router. It also tends to be the only way for devices that do not support things like the ROUTE command.

 

[InvalidError]

Interesting. I didn't know that was possible, I'll look into it. So I see something about a SkipAsSource flag; I would set that to True for the second/DSL/RAS IP?

If you put everything on the same LAN, you would need to use that. If you use dual LANs and only use DSL for inbound connections, the OS should be routing return traffic for an inbound connection through the same interface it came from when it isn't the default.

As bill wrote, you could also use a dual-WAN router, that would be the most flexible option and enable you to make some more use of that DSL line.