Protect your data with VPN Tracker 365 – the #1 VPN client for OS X and macOS:
Start now! Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later
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With countries all over the world requiring people to stay at home, the VPN Tracker 365 Team is committed to helping all customers successfully move to remote work.
To help prevent the spread of the virus, our teams are also working from home, but rest assured that we continue to offer full support to our customers and have taken steps to increase our support capacity.
Support Information
Upcoming updates
We’re continuing to work on improving VPN Tracker 365 and will be shipping an update in the next few weeks with improved logs and troubleshooting tips for common connection issues we’ve seen over the last few weeks.
Getting Started with Work from Home
We’ve written some posts to highlight VPN Tracker 365 features that help improve work from home productivity:
How to Move Your Team to a Remote Work Setup
How to Work from Home Productively
Working from Home with VPN – Your FAQs answered
Stay safe & stay home!
Your VPN Tracker 365 Team
The post VPN Tracker 365: Full Support Availability during the Coronavirus Crisis appeared first on equinux blog.
The Coronavirus has you working from home? For many people, this change will take some getting used to. Especially when using complex tools like a VPN for the first time, learning how to work from home productively can be a challenge at first.
Try these simple tips in VPN Tracker 365 to improve your productivity while working from home…
When using multiple VPN connections for different purposes, it is easy to get confused. VPN Tracker 365 lists all of your connections in the sidebar and allows you to rename connections and give them a personalised icon.
This is a practical way to help you quickly and easily identify the connection you need for the service you require. Simply right click on a VPN connection to rename it or change the default icon:
“Why doesn’t the network drive show up in the Finder sidebar?” This handy auto-discovery feature that makes network shares appaear automatically on your Mac unfortunately doesn’t work over VPN. So it can be difficult to access the resources and services you need when working from home. VPN shortcuts are the best way for you to find and access what you need at the click of a mouse.
Taking a few minutes to set up VPN Shortcuts to your most important internal services (i.e file server, intranet, internal chat etc.) in VPN Tracker 365 will save you a lot more time in the future and help you work from home more productively.
How it works:
Open VPN Tracker 365. Click on the “+” in the bottom left corner and select “New VPN Shortcuts.” Then, drag out the icon of the service you want to use (e.g. Mail, FileServer, web browser) to configure your shortcut:
Select the VPN connection you want to use this shortcut with and then enter the relevant server/browser address:
Now you have instant access to your most important services in the VPN Tracker 365 app.
VPN Tracker 365 also gives you the option to configure specific connection actions which will help you save time when using the VPN connection.
Some useful examples include:
These are just some examples of what you can do to save time. To configure connection actions for your VPN connection, click on the connection and go to “Configure” > “Actions”:
Now your VPN connection is tailored exactly to your needs – which makes working productively from home much easier.
We hope these tips will be useful to you and you will consider trying them out in VPN Tracker 365. Download VPN Tracker 365 today for free to see how it can improve your work from home routine.
Learn more about VPN Tracker on our website, or contact us directly for a quote or if you have any questions.
Protect your data with VPN Tracker 365 – the #1 VPN client for OS X and macOS:
Start now! Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later
The post How to Work from Home Productively – With VPN appeared first on equinux blog.
As a result of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, thousands of offices around the world are following government guidelines and moving their staff to work from home.
This is a big change for everyone involved. Here are some of our best tips on how to quickly move your entire team to a remote work setup and keep everyone working productively from home.
Before you move your team to a remote work setup, the first thing you will need to do is to set up a VPN client and connection to give your new remote workers secure access to your internal network.
VPN Tracker is the #1 VPN client for the Mac and is specifically designed with business users in mind. With configuration guides for 300+ VPN gateways and dedicated business features for professionals, setting up a VPN connection for your team to use while working from home is easy.
Once you’ve downloaded VPN Tracker 365, you can follow these tips to make the change to a remote work setup faster and more productive for everyone in your team.
VPNs can be complicated to configure. The good news is, as an admin you can take care of all the setup and configuration ahead of time and export a connection file for your team that is ready-to-go.
VPN Tracker 365 Pro and VIP offer connection export and you can also specify additional security options, including embedding the pre-shared key without making it user-accessible and hiding sensitive configuration details.
Some of the most frequent support requests we get are from users asking how to access services over VPN. This is because the auto-discovery magic that makes network shares auto-appear in the Finder’s sidebar doesn’t work over VPN.
VPN Tracker 365 makes it easy: Give your team access to frequently used resources by creating VPN Shortcuts and sharing them with your team.
Create shortcuts for your company intranet, file servers, internal chat etc. and give your staff simple one-click icons to connect their VPN and launch the service they need.
Setting up shortcuts in VPN Tracker 365 is easy. Click on the “+” in the bottom left corner and select “New VPN Shortcuts.” Then, drag your chosen service from the bottom menu:
Now you can configure the shortcut and select the VPN connection you want staff to use.
When you’ve finished your VPN shortcuts, you can export them along with the VPN connection your team will use.
Use the Export features in VPN Tracker 365 Pro to export your configured connection and VPN shortcuts for everyone in your team to use.
To do this, open VPN Tracker 365, select the connection you want to share with your team and then go to “File” > “Export.” Here you can specify the export details and create an import password:
Your VPN connection will then be exported as simple file that you can send via email to your team members. They can simply double click to import the connection and shortcuts into the VPN Tracker 365 app.
VPN Tracker 365 offers convenient Team Management features to help you add and assign plans to your team members.
As soon as a team member has been assigned a license, they can download the VPN Tracker 365 app to get started.
Once a team member has accepted your invitation and created an equinux ID, they will appear under the “Team Management” tab.
Tip: Here you can see how many team members you have and how many VPN Tracker licenses you need to purchase from the Team Store.
We hope these tips will help you with the change over to a remote work setup. Learn more about VPN Tracker on our website, or contact us directly for a quote or more information.
Protect your data with VPN Tracker 365 – the #1 VPN client for OS X and macOS:
Start now! Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later
The post How to Move Your Team to a Remote Work Setup #stayathome appeared first on equinux blog.
The current COVID 19 crisis has more and more professionals working from home with VPN. For many of you working remotely and using VPN for the first time, it may take a few days to adjust to this new workflow.
To help you get started and work more productively, here are our solutions for a few common working from home FAQs…
It depends. Each VPN gateway is totally unique and has its own requirements. The best way to find the specific configuration details for your device is by checking our configuration guides. We have setup guides for all leading VPN gateways including NETGEAR, SonicWALL, Synology Cisco, etc…
Get started: Download the VPN Tracker app free and use the guides to configure your VPN connection to connect to your office network from home.
A VPN connection allows you to access files and services located on your company’s network. For example, this may include shared folders, your office’s intranet, internal email services, databases, etc.
Basically, you can access almost anything on your office network over VPN that you can access when you’re at the office. Just note that some of the “auto discovery” features that make things automatically show up at the office won’t work, so you may need to use an IP address instead.
Tip: The Network Scanner in VPN Tracker 365 can help you easily find and access the services you need.
While scanning, VPN Tracker recognizes the type of device, detects the operating system it is running, and displays available services for direct access.
All you need on your end for VPN to work is a good internet connection. Your company’s network administrator will arrange the rest on the other end. As long as your Mac is connected to your home network, your VPN connection should work just fine.
Is my router at home VPN compatible?
You can use Connection Checker to check whether your router supports VPN connections and which protocols are compatible.
Connect your Mac to the internet, start VPN Tracker and go to “Tools” > “Connection Checker.”
Select the protocol you want to test for, or select all if you are unsure. Then, click “Start Connection Check” to discover your results.
When you try to start up your VPN connection for the first time, you may be asked to enter your XAUTH (Extended Authentication) credentials. This is your way of telling the VPN gateway that you are authorised to use the connection.
In most cases, this is likely to be your internal login for your workplace. However, if you are unsure, it’s best to check this with your network administrator first.
Tip: After you enter your credentials, make sure to save them in your Keychain so you don’t have to authorise yourself each time you connect.
Once you are up and running on VPN, you will most likely want to connect to your company’s server right away. Usually on a Mac, available server locations on your network will be displayed in the sidebar of the Finder window; however, when you connect via VPN, these are not always shown automatically.
To connect and get access to your server files, open Finder and use the shortcut “⌘ + k” to open the “Connect to Server” window. Here you can enter your server IP address to gain access. If you’re unsure of the IP address you need to enter, your network admin will be able to help you.
Tip: To get direct access to your server, you can create a VPN Shortcut in VPN Tracker.
Click on the plus in the bottom left corner and select “New VPN Shortcuts.” Then, drag out the FileServer icon to configure your shortcut:
Select the VPN connection you want to use this shortcut with and then enter your server address.
Now you have instant access to your server locations in the VPN Tracker 365 app.
Hopefully these FAQs have helped answer some of your questions about getting set up with a VPN for working from home.
VPN Tracker 365 is the best choice for professionals looking to use VPN to securely access their company network from their Mac. As the leading VPN client for OS X and macOS, VPN Tracker offers a huge range of features designed especially for business users.
Learn more about VPN Tracker on our website, or contact us directly for a quote or if you have any questions.
Protect your data with VPN Tracker 365 – the #1 VPN client for OS X and macOS:
Start now! Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later
The post Working from Home with VPN – Your FAQs answered appeared first on equinux blog.
How-to Guide: Connect your Mac to your office network via VPN
Whilst working in the office, secure access to important data is taken for granted. However, with more and more of us now working from home, the need to externally access the office network is greater than ever before. When it comes to accessing sensitive company data from outside of the office, it’s important to know you are going about it the right way.
How can I access my company’s network from my home office?
When working remotely, the best and most efficient way to connect to your office network is via a VPN. A VPN creates a secure tunnel between your home and office networks which allows you safe access to all your internal services. However, with so many options out there, it can be hard to know where to get started.
With most standard VPN services on the market, only a secure connection is provided. The rest is up to you. VPN Tracker is the best choice for professionals looking to connect remotely to the company network. As well as the highest security standards, VPN Tracker offers a complete service specifically tailored to the needs of your business.
Here’s how to use VPN Tracker, the number 1 VPN client for macOS and OS X, to connect your Mac to your office network.
For you to get started with VPN Tracker, your network administrator will first have to set up a team and add you to it. Once they have done this, you can carry out the following steps to get set up. If you are an admin, refer to the device configuration guides for more detailed setup instructions.
You will receive an email invitation from your admin. Click on the link in the email to accept the invitation and join the VPN Tracker team:
You will now be asked to create an equinux ID. This is your personal account to use with all equinux services and will be your login for VPN Tracker app and the my.vpntracker portal.
Once your account has been set up, you can download the VPN Tracker app and log in with your equinux ID. Download the app here, or via the Downloads tab in your my.vpntracker portal. Your admin should have assigned you a plan by this point so you can start using VPN Tracker.
In order for you to access your office network remotely, your admin will email you a connection file. Double click the .zip file to import the connection into VPN Tracker. You will now be asked to enter a password to check you are authorized to access this connection. This will be provided to you by your admin:
Pro tip: Saving the connection in your Connection Safe will keep the connection settings saved to your equinux ID should you get a new Mac.
Now the connection has been successfully imported, you can test it. Make sure you are connected to an external network (e.g. your work WiFi) and start the connection by clicking on the slider. You will now be asked to enter your user credentials. This may be your internal login for your IT system, or a different login. Make sure you clarify this with your admin.
Pro tip: Once you have entered both your login and password, check “Store in Keychain” so VPN Tracker will remember it every time you need to connect.
Once the setup is complete, you will be able to use VPN to connect to your office network from your home office or anywhere with a WiFi connection which supports VPN. Not sure if VPN is supported? Use the Connection Checker to see whether your VPN connection is supported by your current internet connection.
Learn more about VPN Tracker on our website, or contact us directly for a quote or if you have any questions.
Protect your data with VPN Tracker 365 – the #1 VPN client for OS X and macOS:
Start now! Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later
The post Working from Home? The best VPN for Mac appeared first on equinux blog.
The term “home office” is one which almost all of us are familiar with today. Remote work is becoming an essential part of the way modern businesses operate and many large companies now consist entirely of remote teams spread out across the world. However, for many people trying remote work for the first time, it can be difficult to adjust.
Here are five easy to implement tips which we find super useful whenever we are working from home…
Remote work requires a great amount of self-discipline. Where there are clear boundaries between the home and the office, lines can become blurred when you are spending your entire day at home and you can quickly find yourself getting distracted with other, non work-related tasks.
To help prevent this, establish a clear daily routine from the get go and follow it when you are working from home. Most importantly, this should include three core events:
Try your best to coordinate the rest of your day (i.e. tasks, conference calls, etc.) around these core times. Not only does this type of routine reflect how you would be working in an office environment, it also helps ensure that you have enough time to get everything done without compromising on your wellbeing.
Tip: Use a planning tool such as Google Calendar to set out your daily routine and then share with your coworkers. Be sure to fill in your office hours and any meetings, conference calls, or other appointments you have each day, so colleagues also know when you are available.
Employers spend a large amount of time and money on making sure your work environment is comfortable and contains all you need to work productively. This includes investing in the best equipment (e.g. computers, laptops, office supplies), choosing ergonomic office furniture, and keeping the workplace clean and tidy.
It is important that your workspace at home is just as well organised and practical as your office at work – especially if you will be working from home for a longer period. Balancing your MacBook on your lap while sitting on the sofa simply won’t cut it in the long run.
Find a quiet, undisturbed space in your home where you can comfortably sit and get on with your work. If you don’t have a dedicated room or office for your remote work, this could simply be a dining table, or a desk. Make sure you also have a good chair which is comfortable to sit on for a long period of time in order to avoid damage to your neck, shoulders and back.
Keeping your workstation tidy:
Once you‘ve established your workspace, it’s also important to keep it tidy. Although it may be easy to leave things disorganized while other coworkers aren’t around to judge, it’s not good for your productivity. A tangled mess of cables is not a good space to be working in.
Investing in some cable organizers like tizi Knubbis is an affordable way to make a big difference to your workstation. Route cables safely under your desk and bundle multiple cables together so they’re out of the way.
One of the aspects remote teams struggle most with is communication. In the office, if you have a burning question for one of your colleagues, it’s easy enough to go and talk things through face to face. This is not as simple for remote workers.
Luckily, there are a huge amount of work-based chat platforms to choose from when it comes to finding an effective way to communicate with your coworkers. Tools like Slack are great for remote work and allow you to have direct chats with all your colleagues, as well as dedicated channels for ongoing projects, teams, or general office updates. Using a chat service like this to conveniently ping a team member is a pretty great replacement for simply walking over to their desk to ask a quick question.
For teams, setting up group chat channels is also a highly efficient way to keep multiple people in the loop and discuss important projects and tasks together.
Of course, for more complicated dilemmas, nothing can replace good, old-fashioned conversation. In this instance, make sure to mix things up and also schedule phone calls, video meetings, webinars etc., to keep up the communication.
Aside from the social aspect, one of the main benefits of going to work everyday is the change of scenery. For many people new to remote work, this can be the thing they struggle with most when working from home.
As comfortable as your home is, staying inside the same four walls all week long can be tough. For the sake of your own wellbeing, it’s important to try and get a change of scenery if possible.
Many coffee shops and cafes offer WiFi and a comfortable space for you to work peacefully – even if just for a few hours in the week. Alternatively, if going out is not an option (i.e. due to illness or childcare commitments), try moving your workstation to a different room or getting some fresh air by taking your coffee or lunch break outdoors. A small change of your surroundings can make a huge difference.
Keeping active
Remember to also stay active. In the office, we still move about from room to room for meetings, lunch breaks, team projects etc. When working from home it can be easy to sit in the same spot all day.
Be disciplined and remember to take short breaks to walk about and stretch your back and legs. Consider using your lunch break to go on a walk outside or go out for a jog in the mornings before you start the day. This small exercise will make the world of difference in the long run.
If, like most firms, you handle a lot of sensitive data, you may also be concerned about network security when working remotely, and rightly so! Sending confidential files back and forth unencrypted is risky and you don’t want to leave your business or your customers open to the risk of a threat. Using a VPN tunnel to access your office network is one way to guarantee security.
What is VPN?
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) enables you to safely connect your iMac, MacBook, computer, laptop, etc. to another network (i.e. your office network) via your internet connection. This is done by creating a secure virtual tunnel between your home network and the other location, with which you can send data back and forth, access files and carry out work-related tasks uninterrupted.
Installing a VPN client on your Mac is the safest and easiest way for you to remotely access your company network. As the number 1 VPN client for Mac, VPN Tracker makes it possible for thousands of remote workers to safely connect their Macs to a company network every day.
VPN Tracker is the ideal solution for remote workers who want to connect their Mac to their company network via VPN.
With easily importable VPN connections and practical features such as Connection Checker (which instantly tells you if VPN is available on your network) and VPN shortcuts (configurable, instant shortcuts to your important internal services), VPN Tracker is head and shoulders above any other VPN client.
Learn more about VPN Tracker on our website, or contact us directly for a quote.
Protect your data with VPN Tracker 365 – the #1 VPN client for OS X and macOS:
Start now! Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later
The post Helpful Tips for Remote Work appeared first on equinux blog.
If you own one of Synology’s NAS systems, you can also set it up to act as a VPN server, offering a convenient way to securely access the files stored on your Synology, as well as other devices on your network.
This is a really useful alternative if your router doesn’t offer VPN-capabilities as your Synology is usually always running.
VPN Tracker 365 offers a really simple way to set up your Synology as a VPN server and connect to it from your Mac.
Download VPN Tracker 365 free to get started
To get started, download the latest version of VPN Tracker 365 – it’s free to try out.
Then create a new VPN connection to your Synology:
The VPN Tracker 365 Configuration Guide has detailed step-by-step instructions on how to set up the VPN server on your Synology. The gist of it is:
Once you have created and exported the configuration from your Synology, you can simply drop it into VPN Tracker 365.
Once that’s done you need to
The VPN Tracker 365 Synology Configuration Guide goes into more detail, so we recommend following that closely.
Once you’ve got everything set up, you’ll need to get off your WiFi network to test it out (you can’t “VPN in” if you’re already “in”). One quick way is to use your iPhone’s Personal Hotspot feature, or treat yourself to a coffee and hop on your local coffee shop’s free wifi.
Once your VPN is connected, try accessing your Synology or any other devices on your network. Note that they won’t show up automatically in the Finder’s sidebar, so you’ll need to use the “Go → Connect to Server” feature in the Finder.
Download VPN Tracker 365 free to get started
Happy connecting!
The post How to set up a VPN connection on your Synology Diskstation for your Mac appeared first on equinux blog.
macOS Catalina makes several changes to the security architecture, which means that most VPN protocols have had to make some changes to the way they integrate with the system.
With the latest VPN Tracker 365 update, we’re pleased to again offer PPTP VPN support under macOS Catalina, meaning you can continue to use your PPTP-based connections with macOS 10.15.
To get started:
Once you’ve created and configured your PPTP VPN connection, you can test it out with our free demo. Once you’re sure it’s working correctly, head over to the VPN Tracker 365 store to purchase your plan.
Happy PPTP-ing!
The post PPTP VPN for macOS Catalina appeared first on equinux blog.
AWS customers have long been able to create custom VPN servers using EC2 instances to get secure access to AWS infrastructure and resources.
However AWS recently introduced a streamlined way to easily give VPN access to all of your users called AWS Client VPN.
The AWS Client VPN service:
VPN Tracker 365 customers can start using AWS Client VPN with the latest release, available today.
Our detailed Configuration Guide walks you through the steps of setting up AWS Client VPN and importing it into VPN Tracker.
VPN Tracker supports both certificate-based as well as (the more familiar and more easily rolled out) directory-based user authentication.
How to access the internet while connected to AWS Client VPN?
By default, your AWS Client VPN setup will route all traffic through your VPN. This means, unless you configure a route from AWS to the internet, you lose internet access.
Tip: Thanks to VPN Tracker’s Traffic Control capabilities, you can also use AWS VPN without losing access to your local network and the internet, even if your AWS setup doesn’t offer internet access via the routes you’ve configured.
Just go to Advanced > Traffic Control, select “Only traffic for these addresses” and enter your AWS networks to turn this option on.
AWS Client VPN in VPN Tracker 365 is the easiest way way to access your AWS resources. We look forward to your feedback!
Download VPN Tracker 365 for Mac with AWS Client VPN support
The post How to connect to AWS Client VPN from macOS with VPN Tracker 365 appeared first on equinux blog.
Are you looking for a simple way to establish VPN connections with an AVM FRITZ!Box device? Then check out our quick guide to go through the basic steps in the configuration process.
There are two simple ways to configure a VPN to your FRITZ!Box.
Our VPN Wizard creates a VPN configuration file in a couple of minutes. Set up the connection by simply uploading it to your FRITZ! Box and to VPN Tracker.
With the help of the VPN Wizard you can choose how to tunnel your Internet traffic. That means you can decide to send all your Internet traffic through the VPN (Host to Everywhere) or just to securely connect to the network on the other side of your VPN (Host to Network).
You can use the VPN Wizard with any VPN-compatible version of FRITZ! Box. Please check our detailed guide to easily go through the whole configuration process. You can also download the VPN Wizard here.
Why should I choose VPN Tracker 365 as a VPN Service?
VPN Tracker 365 is a universal solution for any type of VPN connection you may want to establish. It supports not only IPSec but also OpenVPN, L2TP; PPTP, SonicWALL SSL, making it possible to operate on almost any VPN gateways. This means, that you can easily access different networks with just one app and will not need to change your VPN Service even if you decide to change the hardware brand.
Moreover VPN Tracker 365 grants you access to exclusive features, making it easy to reach your everyday goals. Try Team Management to organize your teams in a click or Connection Safe to never lose your connections.
We recommend using this method if you already have all the VPN settings ready in your FRITZ! Box web interface. Please, note, that you can only choose to tunnel all your Internet traffic through the VPN when using this method.
VPN Tracker 365 supports a number of automatic configuration methods, including “EasyVPN”, making it easy to set up your AVM FRITZ!Box VPN connection in no time.
You can also find these settings by clicking “Show VPN Settings” in the settings of the desired FRITZ!Box user in the admin web interface.
Please refer to our VPN Tracker 365 Manual for more advanced settings.
These methods will work with any of the following routers. However it may most probably work with your FRITZ!Box device, even if it is not listed here.
| FRITZ!Box 3490 FRITZ!Box 4020 FRITZ!Box 4040 FRITZ!Box 5490 FRITZ!Box 5491 FRITZ!Box 7430 FRITZ!Box 7490 FRITZ!Box 7520 FRITZ!Box 7530 FRITZ!Box 7560 FRITZ!Box 7580 FRITZ!Box 7581 FRITZ!Box 7582 FRITZ!Box 7590 | FRITZ!Box 6820 LTE FRITZ!Box 6890 LTE FRITZ!Box 7362 SL FRITZ!Box 6320 Cable FRITZ!Box 6360 Cable FRITZ!Box 6430 Cable FRITZ!Box 6490 Cable FRITZ!Box 6590 Cable FRITZ!Box 6591 Cable 1&1 FRITZ!Box 7412 1&1 HomeServer 1&1 HomeServer + 1&1 HomeServer Speed + | NETbox NETbox-Plus Festnetz NETBox-Plus Glasfaser MTKom-Box HomeBox FRITZ!Box 6490 HomeBox FRITZ!Box 6360 HomeBox FRITZ!Box 7270 Telekom Speedport W 101 Bridge Telekom Speedport W 501V Telekom Speedport W 503V Telekom Speedport W 721V Telekom Speedport W 722V Telekom Speedport W 900V Telekom Speedport W 920V |
Still have some questions? Feel free to contact us if you are stuck during the VPN configuration.
The post FRITZ! Box VPN Configuration Made Simple appeared first on equinux blog.
