If I start an Internet Radio Station, and later start a VPN, do the packets just flow across my network?

Question

Say I do the following on Windows 7 Ultimate:

Open iTunes and start an Internet Radio Station.
Then next I VPN into work.

Now at this point (I would think...) the that the iTunes radio station would be flowing over my network and not over the VPN.

But! Say I'm still logged in to the VPN and I need to restart iTunes and restart the radio station, does it now go through the VPN? How can I tell? Do I have to worry about this? And can I change it so that iTunes travels through my network connection and not the VPN all the time?

How do you start an iTunes radio station? Do you mean listen to an iTunes radio station? — joeqwerty, Mar 27 '11 at 17:07
If the radio station is multi-cast, does the VPN allow multi-cast through? — djangofan, Sep 09 '11 at 15:16

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 27 '11 at 17:02

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Usually connections that DO NOT RELATE to VPN are using your normal routing rules applied to your machine and the network it's in. However, it's up to the sysadmin who configured the VPN server is to force ALL connections through VPN tunnel or not.

answered Mar 27 '11 at 17:02

Vick Vega

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So I should probably ask the system admin then? – leeand00 Mar 27 '11 at 17:20
Yes, the setting is usually should be something similar to: "Force all connections through the tunnel" – Vick Vega Mar 27 '11 at 17:21
They're running ipsec and a Cisco client, is there any way to find out from there? – leeand00 Mar 27 '11 at 17:32
Well, you can run `pathping` command while connected to VPN and when not, the output provided should give a hint. – Vick Vega Mar 27 '11 at 17:38
pathping, that seems a little bit like tracert...is it not? – leeand00 Mar 27 '11 at 18:12
Tracert and pathping both use ICMP, which the VPN might treat differently than UDP, TCP, RTSP, etc... – Chris S Mar 27 '11 at 18:40

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 27 '11 at 18:21

It's not clear to me what you're asking but I'll give it a shot:

You're listening to an iTunes radio station, that stream is coming in to your computer from the internet, you then make a VPN connection and want to know if the stream is now coming in over the VPN connection? My take is that if the VPN connection is configured to use the default gateway on the remote network (VPN network) then the stream is going to stop and you'll need to restart it and yes it will then stream in from the VPN connection. If the VPN connection is not configured to use the default gateway on the remote network then the stream is not going to come in over the VPN connection.

This scenario is applicable whether you connect to the VPN before or after starting the stream.

the stream wouldn't necessessarily stop if he changed DGs, as the ACK might simply traverse the VPN, to the net, and back to the radio source. Alternatively, it might use UDP or something that doesn't require ACKs to keep it running. The client software might also auto-restart the connection when the VPN is started/stopped. Some VPN software (notably Cisco's) tries to intelligently route traffic regardless of DG configuration. In the end, your answer boils down to "maybe" which is the most correct given the question. — Chris S, Mar 27 '11 at 18:39

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 16 '12 at 06:02

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In my vpn properties (network/tcpip/properties again/advanced) I found a checkbox that was checked to use a defualt gateway on the remote network. once I unchecked it and disconnected/reconnected, I was able to get to web pages previously blocked by the corporate webfilter. I think this is what you may want to do.

After unchecking the box and disconnecting/reconnecting recheck to make sure the box is still unchecked...

edited Apr 16 '12 at 06:02

Lucas Kauffman

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answered Sep 09 '11 at 15:13

jim

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this is exactly what Joe suggested already. – Chris S Sep 09 '11 at 15:39

If I start an Internet Radio Station, and later start a VPN, do the packets just flow across my network?

3 Answers3