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    How can I deal with split horizon DNS on the road warrior side of a VPN?

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    • J Offline
      jptech
      last edited by

      I want to set up a VPN for the following scenario:

      • I have a MAIN site with LAN only services.

      • The MAIN site uses Host Overrides in the DNS Resolver to give hostnames to LAN only services.

      • I have a REMOTE user that I'd like to connect to the MAIN site as an OpenVPN road warrior.

      • The REMOTE user wants to access services using the same hostnames as the MAIN site.

      • The remote site has a significantly faster internet connection than the MAIN site.  IE: Redirect Gateway is not an option.

      • The remote site has services using split horizon DNS.

      • The only device I control at the REMOTE site is a laptop for the road warrior.

      • The road warrior at the REMOTE site connects using OpenVPN GUI.

      I have an OpenVPN (Remote Access SSL / TLS) server that:

      • Does NOT use Redirect Gateway.

      • Pushes the LAN as an IPv4 Local network.

      • Pushes the firewalls domain as a DNS Default Domain.

      • Pushes the LAN IP as a DNS Server.

      This does everything I'd like except it breaks the REMOTE site's split horizon DNS.  For example, without being connected to the VPN, www.example.com resolves to a local IP.  After connecting to the VPN www.example.com resolves to the external IP.

      Are there any tricks I can use so only DNS lookups within the DNS Default Domain end up using the MAIN site's DNS Resolver?  Is there a better config for what I'm trying to accomplish?

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