Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    Use hostname to reach OpenVPN clients

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved OpenVPN
    57 Posts 4 Posters 7.2k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • UnoptanioU
      Unoptanio @zapador
      last edited by

      @zapador

      25c57c35-2ade-48b7-ae05-e8aa03217ab4-image.png

      pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
      CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
      n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

      Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Z
        zapador @Unoptanio
        last edited by

        @Unoptanio Does that happen when a client connects?

        UnoptanioU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • UnoptanioU
          Unoptanio @zapador
          last edited by

          @zapador

          I tried to make some openvpn connections now and to connect in rdp using the name.domain format but nothing appears in the log section relating to today's date, September 16th.
          in the log the first occurrence of "start of service (unbound)" is on September 14th but I don't know what it referred to

          431980dd-335c-4d57-b60b-0661338d840f-image.png

          of today 16th September I only have the first line in the log

          do you have different data in your firewall?

          pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
          CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
          n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

          Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Z
            zapador @Unoptanio
            last edited by

            @Unoptanio Don't worry about the log at first, just check if things work or not. Start by checking from the pfSense itself using Diagnostics -> DNS Lookup and see if you can get an IP for your connected client.

            UnoptanioU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • UnoptanioU
              Unoptanio @zapador
              last edited by Unoptanio

              @zapador
              e4cd9ae2-0ca6-4f72-9bf4-ac1863a1be6d-image.png

              pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
              CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
              n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

              Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Z
                zapador @Unoptanio
                last edited by

                @Unoptanio As long as you have manually added Host Overrides then you'll never find out if "Register connected OpenVPN clients in the DNS Resolver" is working because the Host Overrides will take priority. If you list something in Host Overrides it will ALWAYS work in the sense that the DNS Resolver will return an IP for anything listed in the Host Overrides no matter if it exists or not.

                But is it otherwise working as it should?

                UnoptanioU 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • UnoptanioU
                  Unoptanio @zapador
                  last edited by Unoptanio

                  @zapador

                  At the moment, with the current configuration, everything works for me.

                  Before compiling this DNS override table, RDP access using the name.domain format did not work for me.
                  7bba8c46-2a7d-442d-a7e8-eb1dddd2a651-image.png

                  RDP access only worked using the machine's IP address


                  RDP access using name.domain format should theoretically work even without having filled in the DNS resolver override table? yes o no?

                  pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
                  CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
                  n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

                  Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Z
                    zapador @Unoptanio
                    last edited by

                    @Unoptanio That's great!

                    UnoptanioU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • UnoptanioU
                      Unoptanio @zapador
                      last edited by Unoptanio

                      @zapador

                      65cc4152-1a4d-4661-a369-9bf79af1f040-image.png

                      e3f8e670-0915-4f3b-98f5-56d0e0ea2954-image.png

                      pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
                      CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
                      n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

                      Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • Z
                        zapador @Unoptanio
                        last edited by

                        @Unoptanio Is what without using Host Overrides?

                        UnoptanioU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • UnoptanioU
                          Unoptanio @zapador
                          last edited by Unoptanio

                          @zapador
                          it was only a question.

                          Initially I thought that once connected to openvpn, the names of the machines that are on the 192.168.1.x network would automatically be visible without use dns override

                          pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
                          CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
                          n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

                          Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Z
                            zapador @Unoptanio
                            last edited by

                            @Unoptanio said in Use hostname to reach OpenVPN clients:

                            Initially I thought that once connected to openvpn, the names of the machines that are on the 192.168.1.x network would automatically be visible without use dns override

                            If you use "Register connected OpenVPN clients in the DNS Resolver" it should work without adding any Host Override. If not something is misconfigured or you're trying with an incorrect hostname, something along those lines.

                            UnoptanioU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • UnoptanioU
                              Unoptanio @zapador
                              last edited by Unoptanio

                              @zapador

                              the host I need to reach using the name is in the remote office network which has ip 192.168.1.x.

                              From my home PC I connect to OPEN VPN and by checking as you said the name is correctly registered: usernameopenvpn.domain and the IP address returns 10.10.94.x

                              33881d04-4e7b-45ac-a40f-456c417c9e17-image.png

                              pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
                              CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
                              n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

                              Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • Z
                                zapador @Unoptanio
                                last edited by

                                @Unoptanio Ah alright. Not sure exactly why that is, seems a bit odd. Is this an acceptable solution though, manually creating the Host Override entries?

                                UnoptanioU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • UnoptanioU
                                  Unoptanio @zapador
                                  last edited by Unoptanio

                                  @zapador

                                  could it be a bug in the pfsense 2.7.0 version?

                                  For now I'll leave it alone that it works.

                                  I'll tell you this last thing:
                                  on the office network 192.168.1.x I have a machine called "Server5k".
                                  If I go to pfsense--> diasgnostics--> DNS lookup it doesn't resolve the name
                                  does not find any machine names on the 192.168.1.x network

                                  9b1454c8-413f-4bb0-ab57-af1d22623013-image.png

                                  pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
                                  CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
                                  n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

                                  Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • Z
                                    zapador @Unoptanio
                                    last edited by

                                    @Unoptanio There could be many reason for that. Is the Server5K connected directly to this pfSense? If so the pfSense should register the hostname via DHCP, or if there's a static DHCP lease. I really can't give you much info here without knowing the exact setup. But ask yourself - how would the pfSense know about the existence of this Server5K and have the pfSense had a good reason to register the hostname in DHCP?

                                    UnoptanioU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • UnoptanioU
                                      Unoptanio @zapador
                                      last edited by Unoptanio

                                      @zapador
                                      6deedac6-ed29-4c71-9266-36aae7e8dbdb-image.png

                                      c21ee34a-407e-4a4e-9f6c-630e4a118c7b-image.png

                                      pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
                                      CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
                                      n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

                                      Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • Z
                                        zapador @Unoptanio
                                        last edited by

                                        @Unoptanio

                                        I would add the pfSense IP in the list of DNS servers:
                                        c73d296f-bc86-4d48-b2ed-6e95a4376889-image.png

                                        You could just remove 8.8.8.8 and replace it with 192.168.1.1.

                                        How does the Server5K get it's IP address? Is it static on the Server5K itself? Or a static lease in pfSense? Or just DHCP without Statis Lease?

                                        UnoptanioU 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • UnoptanioU
                                          Unoptanio @zapador
                                          last edited by Unoptanio

                                          @zapador

                                          Server5k have static IP
                                          cb68c810-ceb5-417c-90d6-7e23e5bef044-image.png

                                          04f3387d-2f2f-44ba-9f57-df9df847e3b7-image.png

                                          pfSensePlus24.03 2U BareMetal Asrock Industrial IMB-X1314MicroATX
                                          CPU: i7-13700@5.2GHz, RAM:32GB ECC, n°2 Samsung 870EVO SATA 2.5” SSD 1TB (ZFS) Raid1
                                          n°3 Intel i225-LM 2500/1000/100Mbps, n°1 NIC Intel i350-T4V2 10/100/1000 Mbps 4*GLAN, n°1 Intel X520-DA2

                                          Z 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • Z
                                            zapador @Unoptanio
                                            last edited by

                                            @Unoptanio That explains why it isn't working. Set it to use DHCP on the server itself. Then on pfSense go to Services -> DHCP Server and at the bottom Add static mapping. Then fill everything out and make sure you get the MAC address right.

                                            You just have to fill out this:

                                            7b915893-f166-41fa-b0f2-7346ca1b6d3a-image.png

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.