Z3 Questions (For 'reverse' printing over a VPN)

[EricWSC]

I have a client that has an MX64 at their main office (Oregon) and has been using the Client VPN at their secondary office (Arizona).  They need to print at the secondary office, which has been a challenge, for reliability.

My thought is to place a Z3 at the secondary office to create a site-to-site VPN connection and then just set the printer to an IP address associated with the primary VLAN at the main office?  Easy to print from, secondary to primary but not the other way around.

The current client VPN is another VLAN that routes to the primary VLAN.

Here are my questions:

1.  Am I missing something as to IP addressing the printer in the second location? 

2.  Would I need to have a static IP address from the ISP at the secondary location for the site-to-site?

Anything else, I am missing.  Everyone's help is thoroughly appreciated.. Thank you ahead for your time.

EJM

[Bruce]

In answer to your questions:

1. Yes, you are missing something.

2. No, you don’t need a static IP address for the Z3, Auto VPN takes care of that.

Regarding the IP addressing the printer will need an IP address for the subnet in the secondary office. Without knowing how your secondary office is currently configured it’s hard to say how best to add the Z3 in. Generally though the approach would be: internet connection terminates on Z3, make sure the LAN addressing on VLAN1 at the secondary office is different to the primary office, enable the primary office MX64 as an Auto VPN hub and add the primary office VLAN to the VPN, enable the Z3 as a Auto VPN spoke, select the MX64 as the hub (don’t select default route) and add the secondary office VLAN to the VPN. Now connect the printer to the Z3 at the secondary office, and also the PC (you no longer need to use the client VPN at the secondary office). And if all that works then the primary and secondary offices should be able ‘talk’ to each other, and so you should be able to print from anywhere on your LAN to any printer at either office.