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I am sure this is a fairly basic question, but the standard google searches have not told me what I am looking for.

I have a restaurant that uses an ipad point of sale on a dedicated subnet id: 192.168.33

The point of sale software requires all ipads to be on the same network to function. We are about to open up our 2nd and third location however and they are not close together. I need to have the ability to tunnel into each location using a VPN.

We have meraki network installed and I have built a test VPN using 192.168.12 as I have never setup a VPN before.

Before I attempt to change this VPN subnet to .33, I want to make sure that I am (1) Not going to totally screw up my current POS subnet by adding the VPN on the same subnet and (2) that it will actually work as intended.

Thank you!

Andy

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  • Did any answer help you? If so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you can provide and accept your own answer. – Ron Maupin♦ Dec 15 '19 at 18:53
  • unfortunately these did not get me where I need to be. I believe meraki has a device that I will be testing with that can VPN into the network and then join a specific subnet which will then broadcast wifi for my remote device to access. Can I mark the question as no longer a need? or just delete? – Andy Latham Jan 24 '20 at 20:42
  • You can delete it, but there is nothing to say it is no longer needed. SE sites are an archive of questions and answers. The premise is that if you have a question, others probably have the same question, so the question gets archived along with the answers. You could also leave it and answer it in the future if you find what you need. – Ron Maupin♦ Jan 24 '20 at 20:47
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The point of sale software requires all ipads to be on the same network to function.

Generally, that is bad design. Servers and clients should be able to reside in different subnets.

If you scatter 192.168.33.0/24 across several sites you'll need to use L2VPN - L2 tunneling over WAN is a general problem and should be avoided wherever possible.

I'd seriously advise on exploring a distributed setup with the software vendor/support. Only if they tell you that that's impossible should you consider L2 tunneling. You must be aware that a L2 tunnel over WAN doesn't have the same reliability as a local link. If the software doesn't provide recovery for lost packets you will need another software solution (or a server at each location).

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  • VxLAN could also be used, for a small number of client devices, it should be manageable. – JFL Sep 18 '19 at 13:14
  • @JFL Absolutely - however, which kind of L2 tunnel you'e using doesn't really matter. What does is that L2 over WAN is a pain and not as reliable as a local network (which may be required by the application). – Zac67 Sep 18 '19 at 13:15
  • @Zac67 thank you so much for the quick response! A few questions: when referring to "scattering the ip range across several sites" are you referring to multiple physical locations? What would a distributed setup mean from the software? How could a server at each location be an alternative solution? Thank you again! – Andy Latham Sep 19 '19 at 13:41
  • @AndyLatham Either you a) route the client-server connection across the VPN (good solution) or - if the software requires that - you b) bridge your locations together to a scattered, single IP subnet over L2VPN (bad solution) or you c) provide a dedicated server on each location, removing the need for client-server over WAN+VPN. The software vendor needs to have a concept for your scenario, so you should ask them first. – Zac67 Sep 19 '19 at 17:25

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