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inglesworth

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 10, 2016
26
2
I am from the school of "if it aint broke, don't fix it" mentality, and so we have many older Macs that do what they've been set up to do and I don't upgrade, or renew things because it works the way I want it to.

I had been hosting a VPN for our business on an old Mac mini running OS 10.9.5 with the server app. The machine has seen it's better days, and it's finally time to give it up and let it die in peace. I need to get external contractors access to our network for file sharing and screen sharing via VPN, and I am trying to set it up on a newer Mac that is running OS 10.12.6.

However, I went to go download the new server app from the App Store, and I discovered that the new version of server does not supply VPN functionality (among many other things that makes it pretty much worthless to me). Does anyone know of an app I can purchase (also open to freeware if it actually works), which will allow me to create and host a VPN server and manage dishing out IP addresses to external computers as they connect?

One other thing that would be necessary, is for the VPN server to be able to start hosting upon system start up. I myself work off-site much of the time, and if I were to ever have to restart the computer administering VPN, it would be imperative for it to start the VPN service automatically, as I would not be able to connect to start it manually.
 
Last edited:

satcomer

Suspended
Feb 19, 2008
9,115
1,977
The Finger Lakes Region
To use the VPN feature maybe you should invest in Smart NAS that has a VPN client/server function inside it! You could use that Smart NAS Store you huge media Libary since SSDs are in new Macs and space might be a problem in Mac’s iTunes future, let alone the huge backup Time Machine backups!
 

TriBruin

macrumors 6502
Jul 28, 2008
476
1,002
I am from the school of "if it aint broke, don't fix it" mentality, and so we have many older Macs that do what they've been set up to do and I don't upgrade, or renew things because it works the way I want it to.

I had been hosting a VPN for our business on an old Mac mini running OS 10.9.5 with the server app. The machine has seen it's better days, and it's finally time to give it up and let it die in peace. I need to get external contractors access to our network for file sharing and screen sharing via VPN, and I am trying to set it up on a newer Mac that is running OS 10.12.6.

However, I went to go download the new server app from the App Store, and I discovered that the new version of server does not supply VPN functionality (among many other things that makes it pretty much worthless to me). Does anyone know of an app I can purchase (also open to freeware if it actually works), which will allow me to create and host a VPN server and manage dishing out IP addresses to external computers as they connect?

One other thing that would be necessary, is for the VPN server to be able to start hosting upon system start up. I myself work off-site much of the time, and if I were to ever have to restart the computer administering VPN, it would be imperative for it to start the VPN service automatically, as I would not be able to connect to start it manually.

VPN (along with all other deprecated services) are still in Server (for now.) Go to the View menu and select VPN to add it to the sidebar.

That being said, I would not invest too much effort with Apple removing it in the next major Server release.
 

inglesworth

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 10, 2016
26
2
Thanks for the insight, fellas. I think we are leaning toward setting this up in our Dell SonicWall. I would jst need to purchase the licenses for each VPN tunnel it would seem.

My next question is if anyone knows a way to track and determine how many simultaneous connections are being used at any given point in time? Is there some kind of log or something I can access in the older Mac Os Server app? I know how many of our contractors have access, but our current SonicWall only supports up to 5 VPN tunnels, and I am trying to figure out if it makes sense to do it with that or to get a newer one that could handle up to 10. I need to find some kind of info about how many of our outside contractors are connecting at any given time.
 
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