debbie10t wroteIt seems a lot of people want to see their Windows network neighbourhood populated with their VPN clients (There are lots of Windows users out there).
Yep. Quite reasonable of them, even.
debbie10t wroteForums.openvpn.net is dedicated to support of OpenVPN not Windows
Of course. OTOH, that's like saying dedicated to support of OpenVPN, not networking. Or Linux, for that matter.
debbie10t wrote and so the information given is considered to be sufficient as a pointer.
Well, obviously it isn't sufficient, or I wouldn't have asked. Or, why put the line there at all? Having put the line there, how much effort would it take to include a link? The writer obviously knew enough to say what was needed, so probably also knew enough to put in an appropriate link - which would save the new user time trying to sink into an ecosystem / solve their problem. After all, isn't that what the forum is about, helping people in the use of OpenVPN in solving their problems? And would have saved posts/questions like this?
Please just take the post as given - a suggestion and a request for a link. It's not a debate.
debbie10t wroteFYI: Windows Networking relies on Broadcast traffic for full functionality
Yep, knew that - although not quite correct, IIUC. For browsing, yes. Given your note, not for access. Not quite the same thing.
debbie10t wrote so TAP is required; Or you require a WINS Server for Windows name resolution to use TUN. Of course, you can simply use //IPAddress/Share over TUN and not bother with WINS; Or even, as you suggest, lmhosts/host files ..
Perfect! That's what I needed to know - I don't care about browsing, just access / will maintain lmhosts files / use IP addresses for what I need. So, then, TAP is not required - which I wasn't sure of, given the rules line. (Not asking, just saying saying TAP is required isn't necessarily true.) And given your note, TUN will take me where I'm trying to go - contrary to the rules line. Given the rules line, I could not have determined that.
And ... I think your post just made something click together in my mind for me, thank you! Check me on this, please - Because a WINS query is a directed conversation (TCP session) it works across TUN / routed nets [unlike Window's default behaviour in the absence of a WINS server, broadcasts, which would require TAP (and there are so many other broadcasts, not just WINS ones, that makes TAP horribly expensive traffic wise)]. Moreover, that WINS server setting can be pushed out via OpenVPN configuration line - so need not even be on a local net.
Thank you - you've just quickly answered some fine points for me. Worthy of ... a link, even, to this post?
