Can't connect to NAS using "File Explorer" when connected via OpenVPN

[Jim_struggles]

I have just installed OpenVPN and I am quite sure it is working correctly as I can connect to DSM fine. I am using OpenVPN Connect on the Windows 10 client side. I have no firewall running on the NAS. I have checked “Allow clients to access server’s LAN”.

What I can’t do though is connect to the NAS via File Explorer as I want to be able to map a drive to access the files on my DS218 but the NAS is not visible. I can ping its IP address of 192.168.4.63. If I enter the IP address into File Explorer it opens up the DSM login screen, which is not what I want. My local IP address of the client machine is 10.8.0.6. This is likely a simple issue but it eludes me. Do I need a DNS to solve this, if so, can you point me to a "how-to" guide? I can provide the results of "nbtstat -A 192.168.4.63" if interested. Thanks

 

[Rusty]

And what happens if you use the Map drive function in Win 10 and enter \\192.168.4.63 as an address? Do you get prompted with the username and pass? After that you should see all your shared folders that you have access to with that account.

 

[Jim_struggles]

Thanks Rusty for looking at this. I tried to map the drive and get a message from Windows saying, "Windows cannot access \\192.168.4.63", Attached is a screen capture. Yet if I put the IP address into File Explorer it launches a web browser to log into DSM.

 

[Rusty]

Thanks Rusty for looking at this. I tried to map the drive and get a message from Windows saying, "Windows cannot access \\192.168.4.63", Attached is a screen capture. Yet if I put the IP address into File Explorer it launches a web browser to log into DSM.

Ok, so the network connectivity is not an issue if you get it via browser. My guess atm is that Win firewall might be the reason you can't connect. Lower Windows Defender and firewall down for test, and try and connect again

 

[Jim_struggles]

Rusty I couldn't figure out how to "lower" Windows Defender so I turned it off and tried it again and saw no difference. (I turned it back on immediately after) Is there a way that I can determine what devices my PC can see, ie produce a list of IP addresses it can see?

 

[Rusty]

Rusty I couldn't figure out how to "lower" Windows Defender so I turned it off and tried it again and saw no difference. (I turned it back on immediately after) Is there a way that I can determine what devices my PC can see, ie produce a list of IP addresses it can see?

Have you turned off the firewall as well?

 

[Jim_struggles]

Sorry, I misunderstood. I am now at the firewall settings page. Should I turn off all 3 areas: Domain, Private ad Public networks?

 

[Rusty]

Sorry, I misunderstood. I am now at the firewall settings page. Should I turn off all 3 areas: Domain, Private ad Public networks?

yes turn all of them and then test

 

[Jim_struggles]

Ok, I turned all the firewall areas off and Windows Defender off as well at the same time and still no change. Could my ASUS router at the client side be causing some issues. I have an ASUS ZENwifi AX.

 

[Rusty]

you could try and run the telnet command from your pc to your nas to test out the smb protocol if it’s up and running and if the pc can connect to it.

telnet youNasIp 445

change the command with your nas ip and run it using the Command line app (CMD).

 

[Jim_struggles]

Thanks Rusty. Ok I tied the telnet command in the Command Prompt window and this is what I get "'telnet' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."
What am I doing wrong?

-- post merged: 7. Jan 2023 --

Also note that I am trying both a split and full tunnel configuration. I find that when using the full tunnel configuration, website resolution is very slow and sometimes I get a "This site can’t be reached".

-- post merged: 7. Jan 2023 --

ok, it seems I had to enable telnet in Windows. I did this and the first time I redid the command I got, "
"Connecting To 192.168.4.63...Could not open connection to the host, on port 445: Connect failed".
Then I tried it again and I got a telnet session I believe. Screen capture attached.

 

[Jim_struggles]

Well this is interesting. Is it possible that by enabling telnet in Windows that it resolved the issue. After doing the telnet test I did another file explorer test and for the first time it showed the NAS folders. I then mapped the drive. The folders seem empty so far but maybe they take a while to show on a remote client. I now just received an error msg saying it lost connection. Then a few minutes later I got a msg from OpenVPN that the connection was re-established. I seem to have some connection issues but am connecting via an xplornet service at 10mbps. I will redo the test a home next week when I connect my notebook through my phone hotspot to eliminate any connection issues.

-- post merged: 7. Jan 2023 --

I am now able to move ahead slowly. The empty folders were not an OpenVPN issue, but related to the account shared folder. Thanks very much Rusty. I had followed 3 details tutorials on how to setup up a VPN for Synology and none mentioned I would need to enable telnet. I also spent countless hours trying to search this issue. I will try this solution on my home notebook as well as it had the exact same issue. I will later try the client side from a Raspberry Pi, but I would not be surprised if I don't have the same issue as I would expect it would have telnet enabled by default. Thanks again.

 

[Jim_struggles]

I likely spoke too quickly. Clearly it was working for a short while but I can no longer connect. Maybe it wasn't the action of turning on telnet. Rusty what was the purpose of the telnet NAS_IP 445 command? I assume it was connected to this is some way that triggered it to work.

 

[Rusty]

I likely spoke too quickly. Clearly it was working for a short while but I can no longer connect. Maybe it wasn't the action of turning on telnet. Rusty what was the purpose of the telnet NAS_IP 445 command? I assume it was connected to this is some way that triggered it to work.

No telnet is not there to fix this problem. It’s there to test communication on a specific port (among other things).

So clearly from what you wrote, you have sporadic issues with this vpn connection. Obviously it is connecting then disconnecting and so on.

Not listing the content of a folder is a sign of a bad connection, slow connection or a huge amount of data in those folders.

Looks like all is well in terms of configuration but the speed and stability seem like the main issue from all that you wrote.

Any way to get a better connection when testing this?

 

[Jim_struggles]

Rusty, I will test this from my home computer which is all at high speed internet. I have found a way to increase my cottage internet speed but will likely wait a few months to go to 25 Mbps from 10Mbps.
The problem is still a bid odd since DSM access via quickconnect is rock solid, and actually so is access to DSM via OpenVPN but just not SMB access to the NAS.

 

[fredbert]

What IP subnet do you use for OpenVPN service of VPN Server? Can you access the NAS on the .1 address of this subnet?

You said that the Windows client local IP address is 10.8.0.6, but it's not clear if that is the LAN IP of the client device or the assigned OpenVPN IP. If it's the OpenVPN IP of the client then try accessing the NAS on 10.8.0.1 as that is the OpenVPN server gateway on the NAS.

 

[Jim_struggles]

Thanks for the response fredbert. I tried 10.8.0.1 and it seemed to work like a charm and I was able to map two folders and access all my files. To ensure it was as good as it seemed, I decided to restart my PC, restarted the VPN and unfortunately the mapped drives don't work now nor can I access the DSM.
When I had first went to 10.8.0.1 I was asked to log into my NAS account. Could that be the issue that I need to force it to log me in again? I don't know how to trigger this.
The IP address of the NAS on the server (home) network is 192.168.4.63. The IP address of the client PC is 192.168.2.158.
Also please note that I get a popup from OpenVPN Connect every few minutes saying "Connected". I wonder if it is loosing its connection and then reconnecting. Although I am on a low bandwidth link(10 Mbps down/1Mbps up), all other connections are solid. I am using a split-tunnel config currently. Attached is a message I got one time when trying to access one of the mapped drives on File Explorer. Thanks again for your help.

 

[Rusty]

The IP address of the NAS on the server (home) network is 192.168.4.63. The IP address of the client PC is 192.168.2.158.
Also please note that I get a popup from OpenVPN Connect every few minutes saying "Connected". I wonder if it is loosing its connection and then reconnecting. Although I am on a low bandwidth link(10 Mbps down/1Mbps up),

Think the main issue here is your upload speed on that remote subnet 2 network. With 1Mbit upload speed (that will be your max speed inside the tunnel btw), is by the looks of it also unstable let alone slow.

 

[Jim_struggles]

Thanks again Rusty and fredbert. I believe it is now working, but I will verify when I am back at the cottage on the weekend. It might have just been lack of knowledge on my end but in case others run into the same issues, here is what seemed to now work:
I needed to specify at least one folder when entering the NAS IP address on the File Explorer line, or if I only specify the IP address by itself, a browser just opens up for DSM. For example I should have specified, "\\ServerIPAddress\homes" This will then result in the server asking for the userName and password. My second lessoned learned is I should have selected, "remember my account or password" (not sure the exact term used), as it didn't seem to want to give me another chance to do it later. Once access to the NAS is granted then you can map a drive. Also note that it seems to take just over a minute to connect to the drives so I learned I have to be patient. Final point; using the server LAN IP address (192.168.4.63 in may case) or the client side OpenVPN IP address (10.8.0.1) works fine. I decided to use the server LAN IP address, in that may my mapped drives connect whether my laptop is connected directly to my server LAN LAN or I am remoting in using OpenVPN.

 

[Gerard]

I needed to specify at least one folder when entering the NAS IP address on the File Explorer line, or if I only specify the IP address by itself, a browser just opens up for DSM. For example I should have specified, "\\ServerIPAddress\homes"

If you enter \\ServerIPAddress you should also get the same login and see all shared folders. You don’t have to enter a shared folder after the slash, at least not in 2 of my setups it’s not needed.

If you entered ServerIPAddress, that will redirect you to the DSM page as expected.