Thursday, March 21, 2013

Tomato VPN and OpenVPN client cannot connect to LAN server using hostname

I have been trying to figure out how to allow an application to connect using the hostname. 
The application works fine on the LAN, but when the user goes to a remote location and uses the OpenVPN GUI client to connect to the network the hostname no longer works. 
If I edit the hosts file and add an entry for example: 10.10.10.10 servername 
Then I can get to servername just fine, however I didn't want to edit the hosts file on all workstations. 
So in looking for another answer, I went into the Basic menu in tomato and the Identification menu. 
In the Domain Name field it was blank, I made up some random domain name and saved the settings. 
I thought I would have to use the fully qualified domain name to connect. (ie: servername.my.private.lan) But after reconnecting to the VPN I was simply able to use the hostname. (ie: servername) to connect and the application now works fine.