Solved Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN
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I have a client on a Mac Book Air that wants to remote desktop to his Windows PC at the office. We put in a Ubiquiti Edge Router X and set up a VPN connection. Tested out fine on our PCs and we sent the client the instructions. At that point he told us he was on a Mac Book Air.
We found some instructions for setting up the VPN connection and got it to work once. He's had some issues with it connecting. Does a Mac automatically reconnect VPN connections or do you have to do something to get it to connect each time? If so, what? This is probably very simple, but I don't have any experience with a Mac.
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You should recommend that he show the VPN connection in the menu bar on mac, this way when he hit's the wireless all he has to do is click on the VPN icon and select his VPN.
From there if it isn't storing the credentials, enter the credentials and he'd be up and running.
https://support.apple.com/kb/ph14079?locale=en_US
Ensure "Show VPN status in Menu Bar" is checked.
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@DustinB3403 thanks for that. I'll be checking it out later today. Do you know if it's normal for the VPN connection to start automatically when wifi is on, or do you have to connect each time?
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@mike-davis said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
@DustinB3403 thanks for that. I'll be checking it out later today. Do you know if it's normal for the VPN connection to start automatically when wifi is on, or do you have to connect each time?
You have to connect each time.
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There may be some setting, somewhere to automatically connect, but I would never use it or recommend it. (if it exists)
Doesn't make sense to automatically connect to a VPN every time you're at a specific location, just because the device is on-site.
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There is no such thing as a Ubiquiti VPN.
What VPN method are you using?
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@jaredbusch According to Ubiquity they support VPN's on their edge router.
https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/204950294-EdgeRouter-L2TP-IPsec-VPN-Server
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@kyle said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
@jaredbusch According to Ubiquity they support VPN's on their edge router.
https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/204950294-EdgeRouter-L2TP-IPsec-VPN-Server
But they don't have their own VPN protocol. . . which is @JaredBusch's point.
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@kyle said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
@jaredbusch According to Ubiquity they support VPN's on their edge router.
Can you tell me the protocols and security design of this "Ubiquiti VPN" ? How does it compare to IPSEC or OpenVPN?
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@mike-davis Under Network in the System Prefrences you can create a VPN with the appropriate settings.
Set the configuration settings
Also tick the option to Show VPN status in Menu Bar
Under the options on the VPN connection you can choose the Verbose logging to identify any issues.
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@jaredbusch it's L2TP over IPsec
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@kyle said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
@jaredbusch it's L2TP over IPsec
I know this. I use it. As well as OpenVPN and IPSEC site to site.
The point is @Mike-Davis did not give anywhere near the correct information to actually get any kind of realistic assistance.
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@JaredBusch You're right. I set it up with L2TP over IPsec. With SonicWalls, they have their Global VPN connector and others have "Net Extender" and Cisco had their own VPN software. (forgot what it is since I haven't used it in so long.)
So I'm using the built in Mac VPN connector configured to use L2TP over IPsec. The client is never in the office with his laptop, but wants to connect back to his desktop. It would be nice if it connected every time he turned his laptop on. That way he could just launch the RDP connection and log in.
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@mike-davis said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
It would be nice if it connected every time he turned his laptop on. That way he could just launch the RDP connection and log in.
It's 2 clicks with the mouse!
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@dustinb3403 said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
@mike-davis said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
It would be nice if it connected every time he turned his laptop on. That way he could just launch the RDP connection and log in.
It's 2 clicks with the mouse!
I know, but before I took over the network, it was no clicks because he was using a Server 2003 as the firewall and his desktop was mapped right through. So now that I made things so cumbersome by putting in a real firewall, I need to make it easy for the owner...
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@mike-davis said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
@dustinb3403 said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
@mike-davis said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
It would be nice if it connected every time he turned his laptop on. That way he could just launch the RDP connection and log in.
It's 2 clicks with the mouse!
I know, but before I took over the network, it was no clicks because he was using a Server 2003 as the firewall and his desktop was mapped right through. So now that I made things so cumbersome by putting in a real firewall, I need to make it easy for the owner...
It's 2 clicks with the mouse!
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@dustinb3403 said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
It's 2 clicks with the mouse!
He owns the company. I'm getting paid to see if I can save him two clicks..
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@mike-davis said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
@dustinb3403 said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
It's 2 clicks with the mouse!
He owns the company. I'm getting paid to see if I can save him two clicks..
So you're billing him by the minute to do research. .
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@dustinb3403 said in Mac Book Air and Ubiquiti VPN:
So you're billing him by the minute to do research. .
That's pretty much how consulting works... Don't you wish every request from your users had a price tag on it?
OTOH there are days like Monday where I spent all day with a managed contract client waiting for Verizon to get the internet up.
