Advice for best Practice/Solution

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hi,

Been using a Mikrotik cloud switch for the last year or so but I am a real novice when it comes to RouterOS. I’m running the latest OS release on the cloudswitch and essentially have configured everything based on the help files and tutorials,

We’ve moved to a different city and ISP and I’m setting up the home office working from home now and household network. I’ve never used a VPN from the home before but have purchased NordVPN and using their directions successfully have all traffic out of the network going through IKEv2 on the Mikrotik router. My business (Work) network seems to hate this and I lose all connectivity from home office machines to the Mothership when NordVPN is running. This includes Office 365, outlook and company cloud services.

I’ve thought of a few solutions but don’t know the best/easiest solution to keep all the personal devices routed through the VPN while sending the work computers straight through the standard ISP connection. I’m typing this connected to an Asus DD-WRT router hooked to the ISP fiber box. Sorry for the long post setting the stage..

“best” Hopefully easy to implement! solution?

  • Put the Asus router in a “DMZ” and let work machines connect to that while all other traffic routes through Mikrotik and NordVPN


  • Give the work machines fixed IP address and route those IPs separately straight to the ISP


  • Create a VLAN for work machines with separate routing

Pointing to tutorials or instructions would be appreciated :slight_smile:

2

Does the Nordvpn appear as an interface on the Mikrotik, with a route pointing to it? Could you share the output from “ip route print” from terminal, or screenshot from IP / Routes / Route List from Winbox or the web interface?

Assuming it does appear as an interface, with default route pointing to it, I think your easiest option is going to be your second one, give the work machines fixed addresses (set these as static in the Mikrotik DHCP) and set different routing for these PCs. But let’s look at the existing routing table first.

Tony S