Once again: your iPhone isn’t on the Mac’s local network, but the VPN will let OS X think it is. Thanks to the VPN connection between the Mac and your iPhone or iPad (or why not, another computer) you’ll be able to access a computer or external hard drive with the same local IP addresses you already know – those .x addresses you’re likely using for Edovia’s Screens, Here File File or Plex. To put it simply: even if your iPhone is on 3G, the Mac will “see” it as a device on its local network. Indeed I am a StrongVPN subscriber, but the Mac VPN sever comes with a series of perks I was really interested in trying out: besides the secure connection, a VPN server running on your Mac allows you to remotely access your computer and attached drives (even network drives) as if you were on the same local network. Why would I want to create a VPN server on my Mac, instead of subscribing to one of the hundreds of VPN services out there? Good question. So: Snow Leopard Server and Snow Leopard have the same VPN functionality, but it’s a bit harder to set up a VPN server on Snow Leopard. While Snow Leopard Server offers an easy-to-use dedicated GUI for creating and managing VPN servers, the “regular” Snow Leopard comes with the same vpnd system process that will handle all your incoming VPN connections. However, it’s still possible to create a VPN server on the consumer version of OS X 10.6 with a bit of command line hacking or a third party application. There are several implementations of VPN out there, but the main concept is that through a secure connection multiple computers and devices can stay on the same local “virtual network”.Īs for OS X support of VPN, Apple offers the option to set up a VPN server (the one that will receive and handle incoming connections from computers and devices) only in the Server version of Snow Leopard. The cool thing about the secure connection is that all traffic is “tunneled” through a cryptographic system that makes it almost impossible (let’s say very difficult) for hackers or people who want to take a peek at your Internet traffic to access your data. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a type of Internet connection that allows users to establish a secure connection between a computer or a mobile device and a server. Last weekend I decided that I wanted to try to set up a VPN server on my MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.6.

Open a vpn on a mac