Wondering if someone could give me a few pointers.
I’m getting SoftEther set up so I can access a NASbox while I’m out. I’ve got the server set up and configured using their documentation and I’ve connected my phone over 4G, which I can see in sessions and I can ping it on the IP address, when i disconnect the 4g it no longer responds so it is definitely the right device. When I connect a windows client, I can see it in sessions, I can see it’s IP but I can’t ping it and it can’t ping my desktop
I don’t have dual NICs but I can do if needed
I have only just started looking into Softether. I am using linux on the client, so it might not apply to you.
One issue I had that sounds similar is that the client’s routing table isn’t set up correctly, and while it gets the correct IP address, the standard route goes through the VPN interface without a separate route to the VPN server through the physical interface.
So the VPN client was trying to access the VPN server through itself, which is not possible.
Try and open a command prompt and run
route print
when you have the VPN connected, and show the output here. (I’m not sure of the exact command).
Sorry for the late response, I didn’t get a notification.
Below is the route print
IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.43.1 192.168.43.87 50
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.32 2
127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 On-link 127.0.0.1 331
127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 331
127.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 331
192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 On-link 192.168.1.32 257
192.168.1.32 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.32 257
192.168.1.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.32 257
192.168.43.0 255.255.255.0 On-link 192.168.43.87 306
192.168.43.87 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.43.87 306
192.168.43.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.43.87 306
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 127.0.0.1 331
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 192.168.43.87 306
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 192.168.1.32 257
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 331
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.43.87 306
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.32 257
===========================================================================
When I’m connected to the VPN from my laptop over a hotspot, I can ping my home router and get to the web portal on it’s IP address. I’ve added in another NIC to my desktop but I still can’t ping either of the IP addresses assigned to those NICs
I’m not a real expert on routing tables, but this one seems to show that your VPN is being prioritised over the physical connection for all requests.
Can the client access websites etc, while the VPN is active?
You’re correct. I didn’t spot that! No I can’t access websites -.-
The documentation I’ve looked at for softether makes it all look like Automagic
Ok, try manually adding a route to your server’s public IP address that uses the physical interface (in this case, the one on 192.168.43.x). And make sure it’s metric value is lower than the one of the default route through the VPN. This is cumbersome, as you have to add and remove it as you connect and disconnect. I made a script on Linux that does that part for me, and connects to the VPN, but you will have to figure something out that works for you 
.
Also, you might want to consider changing your home network subnet to something different than 192.168.1.xxx, because of you try to connect from a network with the same subnet, your routing table will be confused.
I switched from SoftEther to OpenVPN. So far so good. My client can ping the server and access shares on that machine, although the server can’t ping the client. Need to sort out being about to ping around the network from outside and clients from the server
.