In this lesson,
we're going to talk about VPN connections.
Now, a VPN connection stands for
the Virtual Private Network connection.
And a virtual private network
is used to connect anybody or any resources
from one private network to another,
over a public network like the internet.
For example: if I'm on travel
and I'm sitting in a hotel room,
I might want to be able to connect back to my office
and be able to access all the things
that we have inside of our offices;
like our file share,
our remote scanners and our printers.
And I can do that no matter where I am in the world,
as long as I connect back to that private network
over a public network like the internet.
But the danger there is that
anytime you're doing things over a public network,
other people could see what you're doing
or steal your data.
So you want to be able to create a secure tunnel
to be able to tunnel your way through that internet,
or other public network,
and be able to connect back to your office.
To be able to do that, we're going to use a VPN
and Windows allows you to use VPNs very easily,
and it builds it into the operating system itself.
To be able to create a VPN,
simply go into your network center
and then click on network and internet settings.
From here, you're going to click VPN in the left menu bar,
and then you'll be able to set up
whether or not you're going to allow
VPNs over metered networks,
or if you're going to allow VPNs while roaming.
Now, this is an important thing to consider
because just because you're using a metered network
doesn't mean you have unlimited data,
or even a lot of data,
when you start roaming.
For example, on one of the plans I used to have,
I had unlimited data when I was in the United States.
But as soon as I left the United States,
I only got one gigabyte of data per month
when I was on travel.
So in those cases,
I might not want to allow a VPN over a roaming connection
because I'm going to be using up a lot of data to do it.
And in that case, I would want to wait
until I'm back at the hotel at night
where I can plug into a wired network
or a wireless network,
that I can then create my VPN tunnel over.
Now, in order to create your VPN connection,
simply click the plus sign at the top,
and then you're going to fill in your information.
And in my case,
I'm going to connect to a server in the Netherlands
to show you how you can change your location
by VPNing into a different location.
For example, I'm going to be connecting
to NL-free-08.protonvpn.net
and that is a server sitting in the Netherlands,
even though I'm sitting in my office
back here in the United States.
My VPN type is going to be one of these,
and in my particular server,
they use an IKEv2,
which is a type of IPSec connection.
If your server is using PPTP, L2TP, or SSTP,
you would select that,
and you would get this based on the organization
that you're trying to connect to.
Once you do that,
you're going to choose what type of sign in you're going to use.
My server uses a username and password,
but yours might use a smart card,
a one-time password or a digital certificate.
So I'm going to select username and password in my case,
and then I'm going to put in my username and password,
and I'm going to block these out
so you're not going to be able to see them
so I can maintain the privacy
and security of my user credentials.
And once you have all of your details in there,
you'll go ahead and click save.
So now I've created the connection,
but I haven't actually connected to it yet.
And so right now I'm still
connected at my office network,
and I'm not sitting in the Netherlands.
So if I want to connect to
the Netherlands network using that VPN,
I'm simply going to click on the name of Dion Training
and then click Connect.
At this point, it's going to send my information,
verify the connection
and build a tunnel over the internet,
and then it's going to say connected.
At this point, we are connected to that server
using this VPN,
and anything I do is going to be
going through the Netherlands now
and out to the internet,
because that's what I've done;
is created this tunnel from my office to the Netherlands
and now out to the public internet
if I wanted to go to some sort of a website.
For example, if I wanted to figure out what my IP was,
I'm going to see what is my IP.
It's going to tell me what my IP is,
and then I can figure out is that mine
or is that the one for the server in the Netherlands?
Well, by clicking on what is my IP,
we're quickly going to be able to see the IP address
and its location.
Notice here on the right side,
this is located in the Netherlands.
My IP is located in that city inside the Netherlands,
and that is the IP address they gave me.
And I can tell you right now,
I am not currently sitting in the Netherlands.
I'm sitting in America,
but I have created this tunnel
that is going from America to the Netherlands
and then out to the internet.
So, you can use the VPN as a way to change your location
and so that way you can get around regional restrictions,
or you can use as a way to access a private network
such as your home office when you're on travel,
going over the internet
and encrypting that data
from you to that server in this type of VPN tunnel.