With so many businesses currently operating on a remote scale, IT admins have their work cut out for them. As our business has also been affected by the change to remote working over the last year, we wanted to make it easier for admins to manage groups of remote users and get them set up with a secure and functioning VPN connection.
In this guide, we show you how to use the brand new Enterprise Installer Package to easily get your whole team set up with VPN Tracker 365 in just a few simple steps.
It’s been a busy few months re-building VPN Tracker to get things ready for today, so we wanted to share some of the behind the scenes with you. Let’s dive in…
With so many of us now working from home, we’ve been getting a lot of input from our customers and have focused on improvements for remote work situations in VPN Tracker 19.6.6.
We’ve focused on three core areas: Remote DNS, Connection Checker and general connection improvements.
Remote DNS and Split DNS Improvements
To briefly recap: when using Remote DNS, you can ask your company’s DNS servers to resolve addresses for you. This is required if you have internal pages that are only known to your internal DNS servers, e.g. “internal.corp.example.com”
Instead of sending all requests to your company DNS server, you can also only send requests for certain domains – this is usually referred to as “Split DNS”.In VPN Tracker 365 19.6.6, we have added split DNS support for lower-level tools and libraries: anything that relies on etc/resolv.conf will now get the correct split DNS settings you have configured in VPN Tracker.
We’ve also fixed a few issues, one of which is worth mentioning in particular: when using split DNS with a host-to-everywhere connection, in some circumstances all DNS queries would also be sent through the tunnel; This has now been corrected. So if your internal domains can no longer be found with the new update, check your DNS settings and make sure all the necessary search domains have been added.
Connection Checker Improvements
Another big area of focus for this release is Connection Checker. If you’re working from home, it’s important to figure out the best settings for your home internet connection.
Connection Checker can tell you which VPN protocols your router and ISP support and will give you advice on what settings you may need to change to get things working.
Thanks to customer feedback, we’ve been able to improve the in-app suggestions and hints and have also fixed a few bugs.
Connection Checker detects which VPN standards your home internet connection supports
Connection Improvements
As always, we’ve also made a number of improvements to the VPN Tracker engine, for more reliable VPN connections.
Check the full release notes for all the nitty gritty details, here are a few highlights:
A rare issue with Remote Connection Wipe has been fixed that could prevent some Team members from starting a connection
OpenVPN connections now support more compression configuration options that can be sent by the server
Several fixes that could occasionally prevent IPsec VPN connections from coming up right away
Improved error flow when updating your company login password for L2TP, OpenVPN and SonicWALL SSL connections
How to Update
Go to VPN Tracker 365 → Check for Updates… to get the update right away. You can manage your update settings under VPN Tracker 365 → Preferences:
Test Nightly or Beta Releases
If you’re the VPN admin for your company, a reseller or just like getting the cutting edge, you can also enable Nightly or Beta updates under VPN Tracker 365 → Preferences.
You’ll be able to get early access to new features and will be able to test any upcoming changes with your connections before they are rolled out to all users.
Can I go back to an earlier version?
If you ever run into any issues with a beta or regular update and want to try an earlier release, here’s what to do:
With remote work becoming increasingly more important, it’s critical that you have the equipment you need. Alongside other factors, a good VPN gateway for remote work is essential in enabling your team to securely connect to the office network and work from home productively.
This guide takes you through everything you need to know about choosing a VPN gateway for remote work, as well as how to set up your VPN on your chosen device…
What do I need to move my team to remote work?
Before we begin, let’s quickly review what you’ll need to get your team working from home:
A VPN Gateway connected your internal network
Each employee uses their own Internet Connection
The employee connects via a VPN Client such as VPN Tracker 365 running on their Mac
What to look for in a VPN gateway for remote work
While there is no “one size fits all” solution, here are some key factors to think about when weighing up your options:
Gateway Type
You can typically find two types of VPN gateways: All-in-one routers with VPN support, or dedicatedVPNfirewalls.
Dedicated VPN Firewalls typically offer more advanced security features and are designed for larger offices. For a smaller office, an all-in-one router with VPN support is easier to configure but will mean replacing your existing equiment.
Action: Decide whether a router or firewall is better suited to your current network setup.
Business vs. Consumer
VPN gateways tend to vary between business- and consumer-level and offer different features respectively. If you’re a small team with 1-3 people connecting, a consumer-level router with VPN support may be enough for your needs. For larger teams, you’ll want to look for a business-level product that has more processing power to support more VPN users simultaneously.
Action: Weigh up your business’ needs and determine which type of VPN device you are going to search for.
How many users are supported?
Many businesses will have to configure more than one VPN connection to suit different users and their specific use-cases. If this is the case for your business, it is important that you check whether the VPN gateway offers support for multiple connections.
Action: If it is likely that you will be setting up more than one VPN connection, make sure to look exclusively at VPN devices which support multiple connections.
Tech Specs
VPN gateways differ massively in terms of their technical specification. Depending on the size and nature of your business, many of the more advanced features offered may not even be relevant.
Action: List the features which are most important for your company and cross-reference these with the gateways’s spec.
As well as multiple connection support, some other important features to look out for may include:
Supported VPN protocols: E.g. IPSec, OpenVPN, L2TP, PPTP, etc.
VPN throughput: The higher the throughput, the faster and better the connection will be.
Processor: The faster your VPN gateway’s processor, the better. A fast processer will make sure your device can handle the demand and allow remote workers to make full use of their internet connection speeds.
Price
VPN gateways vary in price, costing anything from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on how many users they support, their performance and other features.
Action: Be sure to shop around and compare prices of multiple retailers.
Support
Finally, your VPN gateway is a crucial part of your company’s network infrastructure. Should you encounter any issues, it’s important that you are able to quickly get the guidance you need from the manufacturer so you can get things up and running again.
Action: Check the support options on the manufacturer’s website and try to research customer reviews before making your final decision.
Which options are out there?
When it comes to finding the best VPN gateway for remote work, there are many options to choose from. Below we’ve listed some of the most popular choices among our customers, but of course it’s down to you to find the gateway which is right for your business.
A solid all-in-one choice that offers OpenVPN support, good WiFi coverage and decent performance. Only supports one VPN connection, so suited for individuals wishing to connect to their office.
As one of the most popular choices amongst VPN Tracker customers, SonicWALL’s TZ-series is a great choice offering excellent performance and advanced security features.
Thanks to SonicWALL Simple Client Provisioning support in VPN Tracker, your VPN will be set up in no time.
Key features:
SonicWALL Simple Client Provisioning makes connecting with VPN Tracker really easy
The Juniper SRX550 is a high end, business-level gateway aimed at mid to large branch locations. The impressive spec of this model means it doesn’t come cheap, but there are other lower-spec models available in the SRX series.
How to configure a VPN connection for your VPN gateway
Now you’ve chosen your VPN gateway, it’s time for you to configure your VPN connection. With step-by-step configuration guides for 300+ VPN routers, VPN Tracker makes this easy. You can find configuration guides for all leading gateway manufacturers here.
With countries all over the world requiring people to stay at home, the VPN Tracker 365 Team is committed to helping all customers successfully move to remote work.
You can rest assured that we continue to offer full support to our customers and have taken key steps to increase our support capacity during this difficult time.
Support Information
Our support team continues to be available for you during this time
We’ve updated all FAQs to cover your most common issues
The more information you include in your support request, the better. Please include a Technical Support Report (TSR) from inside the VPN Tracker app
Support is only available for VPN Tracker 365 customers; Users of earlier VPN Tracker versions will need to purchase a VPN Tracker 365 plan
We’re continuing to work on improving VPN Tracker 365 and will be shipping an update in the next few weeks with improved logs and troubleshooting tips for common connection issues we’ve seen over the last few weeks.
Getting Started with Work from Home
We’ve written some posts to highlight VPN Tracker 365 features that help improve work from home productivity:
The Coronavirus has you working from home? For many people, this change will take some getting used to. Especially when using complex tools like a VPN for the first time, learning how to work from home productively can be a challenge at first.
Try these simple tips in VPN Tracker 365 to improve your productivity while working from home…
As a result of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, thousands of offices around the world are following government guidelines and moving their staff to work from home.
This is a big change for everyone involved. Here are some of our best tips on how to quickly move your entire team to a remote work setup and keep everyone working productively from home.
The current COVID 19 crisis has more and more professionals working from home with VPN. For many of you working remotely and using VPN for the first time, it may take a few days to adjust to this new workflow.
To help you get started and work more productively, here are our solutions for a few common working from home FAQs…
How-to Guide: Connect your Mac to your office network via VPN
Whilst working in the office, secure access to important data is taken for granted. However, with more and more of us now working from home, the need to externally access the office network is greater than ever before. When it comes to accessing sensitive company data from outside of the office, it’s important to know you are going about it the right way.
Using a VPN to connect your Mac to your office network helps keep your company data safe. Read More
