Setup recommendation for VPN'ing into test enviroments

[jneuharth]

I'm looking for recommendations from the group. We have several virtual Windows Servers that are basically setup in their own DMZ. They do connect out to the Internet for updates, various activities that have to deal with the software we are testing etc. What I would like to do is install SoftEther on the servers (thinking standalone VPN) where we can connect to the VPN either by our machines (Windows) or via our software. I have already setup a quick test and can do all of that really easily.... so here comes the question.

After connecting the VPN, I would like to connect to various ports I don't want open to the public on the server running SoftEther to conduct tests from the client connecting to the VPN. I played around with SecureNAT and the Virtual DHCP as there is no DHCP service in the test DMZ. (I basically only have the box/server itself as I'm trying to isolate these boxes for various reasons and I can do that pretty easily.) I have been unsuccessful in connecting to various ports from my client machine to the VPN server ports... even with the firewall off on the server. I'm trying to figure if I'm doing something wrong or if there is a better approach.

To give a real world example of a scenario I'm trying to do to explain it a bit differently and hopefully make things clear. I would like to connect to an Active Directory test server (via port 389) and programmatically run various tests against it. If I'm on that server I can connect to localhost port 389 and run the tests just fine. With SoftEther installed as a Standalone VPN server, I would like to connect to the VPN and run the tests against Active Directory via my client machine. Should I use SecureNAT? Is there some magic IP I should use to connect to that box when I'm on the VPN? Right now I only have a public IP assigned to the box which limits traffic to port 443 as we have a secure website we also connect to to validate results. I could see about giving the same box a private IP in the same range as the Virtual DHCP server... although I would prefer to not do that work if I do not have to.

I look forward to hearing the groups thoughts on setup or recommendations.

Respectfully,
Jeremy

[jneuharth]

I have continued to try to work on this but without success. I'm going to try to add on an adapter/IP and see if that works. I'm surprised that no one is like it is a simple solution of X that I'm just missing. Seems like a pretty easy/normal use case if wanting to communicate with the box that the VPN server is running on.

Is it because I only have a public IP on the box that this is harder then I think it would be? It would be awesome if someone could help me connect the dots on what I'm missing.

Respectfully,
Jeremy