Bonjour via Open VPN

I need to connect to an office network using the “Open VPN” network using the Tunnelblick application. I am successfully connected to the remote network and can browse the internet as if I am in the remote location.

However I need to access a server and if possible all other computers and printers should appear in Finder (Bonjour). Currently I can’t even ping any known device on the other side.

Any advice here?

Some questions to diagnose:

  • Is your vpn client in the same subnet/range as your home network? (VPN’s usually auto configure to something in the 10.x.x.x range, and most home routers to 192.168.x.x)

  • is your vpn set to allow browsing of the local subnet?

  • just for testing purposes: what happens when you use the native L2TP as a VPN entry? Does that allow browsing of the network?

I have used both L2TP, OpenVPN and Synology’s VPN solutions and have never had issues to ping/connect to a mac at home. (In fact, I’m typing this on my iMac at home in the Netherlands from my iPad in Austria :-))

The router in question has a strong firewall (Sophos) and I figured that we needed to open in and outgoing ports in the firewall.

I could never get Bonjour to work over VPN. I read why a number of years ago but I don’t remember the reason. I also looked at another VPN-like software that did support Bonjour over the connection, but again I don’t remember. (It was at least five years ago that I investigated this problem).

I issue static IP addresses to systems I need to access over VPN and connect via the IP address rather than the system name. Inconvenient, but it works.

On the OpenVPN server you need to set up SMCRoute. Bonjour is a multicast protocol and not routed by default over network segments.

Thanks Lars,

Never heard of “SMCRoute” will have to look that up how to enable this on Sophos, Ubiquity and Peplink.

Smiles across the wires,

Rogier