How do I assign a static IP address to a Win 2008 VPN server?
VPN connections work by creating tunnels between client and server. These tunnels are essentially very small subnets with 4 addresses. In the above address range given, your first tunnel will use subnet 192.168.42.100/30, and the addresses are used like this:
- 192.168.42.100 is the network address
- 192.168.42.101 is the address of the server endpoint
- 192.168.42.102 is the address of the client endpoint
- 192.168.42.103 is the broadcast address of the subnet
If you connect a second client to the VPN server, the next subnet will be used (192.168.42.104/30). This is needed so that the VPN server can route traffic to the clients. So when your client speaks to 192.168.42.101, it doesn't actually speak to the server, it speaks to the VPN endpoint of its tunnel. This happens to be on the server, and therefore things generally work (particularly if the services on the server are not restricted to incoming traffic on a particular subnet or interface)
However, the server is also available to the clients via its very own base IP address (or, if DNS is configured, through its hostname). Your post doesn't mention it, but from what you are writing, we can probably safely assume that this is another address in the 192.168.42.0/24 subnet. And that address never changes, no matter how many clients connect.