[GRLUG] VPN access to website on LAN

[Eric Beversluis]

On Wed, 2013-09-25 at 08:09 -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> On Tue, 2013-09-24 at 23:43 -0400, Eric Beversluis wrote:
> > I've got a website set up on our server at work (ClearOS); the website
> > also has a production version at GoDaddy. I've got the local DNS on the
> > server working so I can get to the local version from the LAN. But now
> > I'm trying to do the same thing when connected via pptp from home, and
> > all I can get is the GoDaddy version.
> 
> You need to use the VPN's remote DNS server, at least for the domain of
> the VPN's network.  If you are hitting public DNS when connected to a
> private network then nothing will work as expected.
> 
> DNS cache [local/application] can also be an issue when you start/stop
> VPN [or any] network connections with applications active.
> 
> > I know the VPN connection is working, since I can connect to hosts at
> > work with their private IP addresses and log into the ClearOS webconfig
> > using 192.168.1.1. I can use RDP to connect to a Windows server on the
> > LAN that has no public IP address.
> 
> > There's stuff online about how to set up Windows to either have the
> > browser go through the VPN or not, but I haven't found anything about
> > how to do it in Linux. 
> 
> There is dialog for VPN connection DNS settings in NetworkManager.

I had entered 192.168.1.1 in Configure > Additional DNS servers. This
didn't seem to override the DNS cache in FF. Clearing all recent history
in FF also did not seem sufficient. In the end it seemed I had to reopen
FF and then clear history, once the pptp connection was made.

As I understand it, there's no OS DNS cache in Linux, unless nscd, bind,
or dnsmasq are running
(http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11020027/dns-caching-in-linux)

Thanks.