I wanted to be able to VPN into my home desktop (from my Droid X) so that I could access my files and as well as stream audio. I know there are ways to stream audio (but that is the easy and less secure way – not to mention a lot less nerdy). For the time being I have been forced to setup a media server. Not my ideal way of doing it, but it will work. So here is what I had:

• Setup my Windows 7 Desktop as a VPN Server – accepting incoming connections
• Setup my Droid X to VPN to my desktop
• Be able to access all files and still be able to use the Internet (I like to multi-task after all)

I got the first two bullets working.  It was not difficult to setup a Point-to-Point VPN server on a Windows 7 box.  A quick Google search solved that issue.  Getting the phone to connect was a little trickier (not really sure why… just seemed to be).  I was eventually able to get the phone to connect using my home’s external IP, over 3G.  Now, here is where the problems started.

No matter what I did, I could not access the internet on my phone.  It was just dead (internet wise).  I didn’t test (on my phone) to see if I could access local resources.  It wasn’t worth it to me, if I couldn’t access the internet as well.

To test it some more, I decided to setup the VPN client on my Windows 7 laptop.  I successfully connected to the VPN server and started some trace routes.  The problem seems to be that the desktop is dropping any connections that are not intended for the desktop itself.  I can access local shares on my desktop, but my internet connection is also out.

I really have run out of ideas on how to get this to work.  Any help in this would be greatly appreciated.

I have thought about setting up an OpenVPN connection, but I am not sure if I want to go that route… I may have to.  It would be nice, once I get this working right, so that I can remote into my family’s computers (over VPN) to not only access files but to do some remote desktop trouble shooting.  The least ports I have open to the outside world, the better… hence the wanting of VPN.