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Author Topic: Access Keys and Multi-Homed Network Connections  (Read 1179 times)

glynor

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Access Keys and Multi-Homed Network Connections
« on: January 27, 2012, 09:57:39 am »

So, I have an issue I'd love some help with...

At the office, we have a secure wired network that offers access to our internal network resources, and then we have an unsecured (open) WiFi network that provides Internet access, but no access to the internal network (behind the firewall).  To get on the Internal network from a WiFi connection, you have to use VPN.

That's not a problem, really, but for whatever reason our IT department won't allow you to use VPN on mobile devices of any kind, even if they are owned by the company.  Their current policy is that the device has to have user management and a login prompt to be allowed VPN access.  This is a silly restriction for a bunch of reasons, but that's their current rule.

So, there is a no way to get on the internal network using my iPad, or any Android device, or anything like that.  From Windows or a Mac, it is fine (of course).  But on a "mobile device" you are stuck with WiFi access only.

Okay, background explained... I have a MC server here that manages all of our "public" video content.  I'd like to be able to use JRemote (or WebRemote, etc) on my iPad/iPhone to control our Video Wall (among other devices).  But, the server needs to be connected to the internal network because all of the video it manages is stored on a network share on our SAN.

What I'm wondering is this:

If I buy a WiFi PCIe card for that PC, and put it on the WiFi network in addition to the wired Ethernet network, will I then be able to use MC's Access Key to access the Library Server from my iPad?

What I can do is make the WiFi adapter in Windows the "default gateway".  I don't think that should screw anything up.... Any time it needs to access the internal network (for the SAN or an intranet web page), it would be able to use the wired connection, but for all regular Internet access it would use the WiFi.  I'm pretty sure I can pull that off, and there is very good WiFi coverage in the spot where the server happens to live.

But I don't want to buy the WiFi card if this is going to confuse the Access Key system.  They won't (obviously) assign static IP addresses on the WiFi network, so I'm going to be at the mercy of whatever DHCP assigns me on that interface, so I would need to use the Access Key method.

Anyone out there have any experience with this?  My only laptop with a wired/wireless multi-homed network configuration is a Mac, and Parallels hides this complexity behind a network sharing scheme, so I can't easily test it out to make sure that http://webremote.jriver.com/<access_key> actually points to the right network address when I set the network adapter "order" in Windows.
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glynor

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Re: Access Keys and Multi-Homed Network Connections
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2012, 09:58:38 am »

I should note:  I have no idea if IT will let me implement this plan for security reasons.  If I get confident that it might work, I'll ask them.
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bob

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Re: Access Keys and Multi-Homed Network Connections
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2012, 10:34:16 pm »

I think your plan will work. I just tried this by creating a alias interface on my XP virtualbox container and checked with webremote.jriver.com with my key and got back 3 addresses, the two inside (real and alias) as well as the wan address.
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