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Setting up site-to-site VPN

Site-to-site VPN settings are accessible through the Security & SD-WAN > Configure > Site-to-site VPN page.

I just received an MX64 from a webinar & I'm trying to get client VPN working. I can connect fine, but can't reach (ping) any of the IP's on the Meraki LAN. My setup: Local LAN (Meraki): 192.168.1.0/24. VPN Subnet: 192.168.2.0/24. Remote Subnet (where I'm testing from): 192.168.1.0/24. Meraki support changed the VPN registries to no avail. I can ping the MX64 directly through the tunnel with no packet loss, but just pinging a printer at that site over that same period I get the above mentioned loss. They also do not lose any internet access as we're split tunneling WAN traffic. What we usually do in this case is set the MX64 up with a static IP in on the ISP modem/router subnet and configure port forwarding for it (ports UDP 500 & UDP 4500 for Client VPN). If the customer is running any other local services it may make sense to set the Meraki's.

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Cisco Meraki MX64 Configuration Next, we go to the Cisco Meraki MX64 configuration steps. Please keep in mind that this article was written in August of 2019, so some of the menu titles and labels may have changed between when this article was written and now.

There are three options for configuring the MX-Z's role in the Auto VPN topology:

• Off: The MX-Z device will not participate in site-to-site VPN.
• Hub (Mesh): The MX-Z device will establish VPN tunnels to all remote Meraki VPN peers that are also configured in this mode, as well as any MX-Z appliances in hub-and-spoke mode that have the MX-Z device configured as a hub.
• Spoke: This MX-Z device (spoke) will establish direct tunnels only to the specified remote MX-Z devices (hubs). Other spokes will be reachable via their respective hubs unless blocked by site-to-site firewall rules.

Hub Type

Exit Hubs

This option is only available if the MX-Z device is configured as a Hub. This option lets you designate the remote MX-Z device that is to receive all network traffic from the local MX-Z device. This creates a Full Tunnel configuration where all traffic destined for a default route is sent to the specified MX.

Security features over full-tunnel VPN

In a full tunnel topology, all security and content filtering must be performed on the full tunnel client. The Exit hub will not apply Content Filtering, IPS blocking, or Malware Scanning to traffic coming in over the VPN. However, IDS scanning will be performed for this traffic.

Spoke Type

Hubs

When an appliance is configured as a Spoke, multiple VPN Hubs can be configured for that appliance. In this configuration, the Spoke MX-Z device will send all site-to-site traffic to its configured VPN hubs.

Default Route

When configuring Hubs for a Spoke, there is an option to select a hub as being a Default route. If this option is selected, then that hub will be configured as a default route for the Spoke (0.0.0.0/0). Any traffic that is not sent to a configured VPN peer network, static route or local network will be sent to the default route. Multiple hubs can be selected as default routes. Hubs marked as default routes take priority in descending order (first priority at the top).

Configuring multiple VPN hubs

To add additional hubs, click the 'Add a hub' button just below the existing hub that is selected. Please note that only appliances in Mesh VPN mode can be hubs, so the number of Mesh VPN appliances in your Dashboard organization represents the maximum number of hubs that can be configured for any given appliance.

The order in which hubs are configured on this page is the hub priority. Hub priority is used to determine which hub to use if more than one VPN hub is advertising the same subnet. The uppermost hub that meets the following criteria will be used to reach that subnet.

A) Advertises the subnet

B) Currently reachable via VPN

Hubs can be deleted by clicking on the grey 'X' to the right of the relevant hub under the Actions column. The hub priority list can be reordered by clicking and dragging the grey four-point arrow icon to the right of any hub in the list to move that hub up or down.

Tunneling

There are two tunneling modes available for MX-Z devices configured as a Spoke:

• Split tunnel (no default route): Send only site-to-site traffic, meaning that if a subnet is at a remote site, the traffic destined for that subnet is sent over the VPN. However, if traffic is destined for a network that is not in the VPN mesh (for example, traffic going to a public web service such as www.google.com), the traffic is not sent over the VPN. Instead, this traffic is routed using another available route, most commonly being sent directly to the Internet from the local MX-Z device. Split tunneling allows for the configuration of multiple hubs.
• Full tunnel (default route): The configured Exit hub(s) advertise a default route over Auto VPN to the spoke MX-Z device. Traffic destined for subnets that are not reachable through other routes will be sent over VPN to the Exit hub(s). Exit hubs' default routes will be prioritized in descending order.

Concentrator priority

The concentrator priority determines how appliances in Hub (Mesh) mode will reach subnets that are advertised from more than one Meraki VPN peer. Similarly to hub priorities, the uppermost concentrator in the list that meets the following criteria will be used for such a subnet.

A) Advertises the subnet

B) Currently reachable via VPN

It is important to note that concentrator priorities are used only by appliances in Meshmode. An appliance in Hub-and-Spoke mode will ignore the concentrator priorities and will use its hub priorities instead.

NAT Traversal

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If the MX-Z device is behind a firewall or other NAT device, there are two options for establishing the VPN tunnel:

• Automatic: In the vast majority of cases, the MX-Z device can automatically establish site-to-site VPN connectivity to remote Meraki VPN peers even through a firewall or NAT device using a technique known as 'UDP hole punching'. This is the recommended (and default) option.
• Manual: Port forwarding: If the Automatic option does not work, you can use this option. When Manual: Port forwarding is enabled, Meraki VPN peers contact the MX-Z device using the specified public IP address and UDP port number. You will need to configure the upstream firewall to forward all incoming traffic on that UDP port to the IP address of the MX-Z device.

Make sure the port number you have chosen is not already used by another service. For example, do not use port 500 or 4500 as these are used for Client VPN and 3rd party VPN peer communication.

If you have multiple LAN subnets, you have the option to specify which VLANs and static routes participate in the VPN.

The same subnet can only be advertised from more than one appliance if all appliances advertising that subnet are in Passthrough or VPN Concentratormode. All subnets advertised from an appliance in Routed mode must be unique within the Auto VPN topology.

Subnets to which the MX-Z device has Static LAN routes can also be advertised over the VPN. If you choose to advertise a statically routed subnet over the VPN, ensure that the gateway device for each subnet is configured to route traffic for remote VPN subnets to the MX-Z device, in order to keep your routing symmetrical.

In full tunnel configurations when specifying a prefix to be part of a VPN, everything covered by that prefix will be allowed in the VPN. Therefore, subnets that overlap will cause traffic in a more specific subnet to be sent through the VPN, even if it is not configured to be included in the VPN. For example, if 10.0.0.0/16 is configured to be included in the VPN but 10.0.1.0/24 is not, traffic sourced from 10.0.1.50 will still be sent over the VPN.

VPN Subnet Translation

This feature is not enabled by default, please contact Meraki support to enable it.

Moreover, this feature is only supported for Auto VPN and is not intended to work with non-Meraki VPN peers.

In large distributed networks, multiple networks may have identical subnet scopes (i.e. overlapping subnets). Site-to-site VPN communication requires each site to have distinct and non-overlapping local subnets. In the event that multiple locations have the same local subnet, enable VPN subnet translation to translate the local subnet to a new subnet with the same number of addresses.

Subnet Translation Example

• Branch 1 local subnet: 192.168.31.0/24
• Branch 2 local subnet: 192.168.31.0/24 (identical!)
• Branch 1 translated subnet: 10.0.1.0/24
• Branch 2 translated subnet: 10.0.2.0/24

OSPF route advertisement

While the MX Security Appliance does not currently support full OSPF routing, OSPF can be used to advertise remote VPN subnets to a core switch or other routing device, avoiding the need to create static routes to those subnets. OSPF advertisement is only supported in VPN Concentrator mode.

Advertise remote routes: If this is set to Enabled, OSPF will be used to advertise remote VPN subnets as reachable via this concentrator.

Router ID: The OSPF Router ID that this concentrator will use to identify itself to neighbors

Area ID: The OSPF Area ID that this concentrator will use when sending route advertisements.

Cost: The route cost attached to all OSPF routes advertised from this concentrator.

Hello timer: How frequently the concentrator will send OSPF Hello packets. This should be the same across all devices in your OSPF topology.

Dead timer: How long the concentrator will wait to see Hello packets from a particular OSPF neighbor before considering that neighbor inactive

MD5 Authentication: If this is enabled, MD5 hashing will be used to authenticate potential OSPF neighbors. This ensures that no unauthorized devices are injecting OSPF routes into the network.

Authentication Key: The MD5 key number and passphrase. Both of these values must match between any devices that you wish to form an OSPF adjacency.

You can create Site-to-site VPN tunnels between a Security Appliance or a Teleworker Gateway and a Non-Meraki VPN endpoint device under the Non-Meraki VPN peers section on the Security & SD-WAN > Configure > Site-to-site VPN page. Simply click 'Add a peer' and enter the following information:

• A name for the remote device or VPN tunnel.
• What IKE version to use (IKEv1 or IKEv2)*
• The public IP address of the remote device.
• The Remote ID of the remote peer. This is an optional configuration and can be configured to the remote peer’s UserFQDN (e.g. user@domain.com), FQDN (e.g. www.example.com) or IPv4 address as needed.
  • Which of these values you use is dependent upon your remote device. Please consult its documentation to learn what values it is capable of specifying as its remote ID, and how to configure them (e.g. crypto isakmp identity for ASA firewalls)
• The subnets behind the third-party device that you wish to connect to over the VPN. 0.0.0.0/0 can also be specified to define a default route to this peer.

  • Note that if an MX-Z device is configured with a default route (0.0.0.0/0) to a Non-Meraki VPN peer, traffic will not fail over to the WAN, even if the connection goes down.

• The IPsec policy to use.
• The preshared secret key (PSK).
• Availability settings to determine which appliances in your Dashboard Organization will connect to the peer.

*IKEv2 requires firmware version 15.12 or greater

NOTE For IKEv2

Meraki Appliances build IPsec tunnels by sending out a request with a single traffic selector that contains all of the expected local and remote subnets. Certain vendors may not support allowing more than one local and remote selector in a given IPsec tunnel (e.g. ASA 5500-X series firewalls running certain firmware releases); for such cases, please use IKEv1 instead.

An MX-Z device will not try to form a VPN tunnel to a non-Meraki peer if it does not have any local networks advertised.

IPsec policies

There are three preset IPsec policies available.

• Default: Uses the Meraki default IPsec settings for connection to a non-Meraki device
• AWS: Uses default settings for connecting to an Amazon VPC
• Azure: Uses default settings for connecting to a Microsoft Azure instance

If none of these presets are appropriate, the Custom option allows you to manually configure the IPsec policy parameters. These parameters are divided into Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Phase 1

• Encryption: Select between AES-128, AES-192, AES-256, and 3DES encryption
• Authentication: Select MD5, SHA1 or SHA256* authentication
• Diffie-Hellman group: Select between Diffie-Hellman (DH) groups 1, 2, and 5
• Lifetime (seconds): Enter the phase 1 lifetime in seconds

*SHA256 requires firmware version 15.12 or greater

Phase 2

• Encryption:Select between AES-128, AES-192, AES-256, and 3DES encryption (multiple options can be selected)
• Authentication:Select between MD5 and SHA1 authentication (both options can be selected)
• PFS group: Select the Off option to disable Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS). Select group 1, 2, or 5 to enable PFS using that Diffie Hellman group.
• Lifetime (seconds): Enter the phase 2 lifetime in seconds

On May 8th 2018, changes were introduced to deprecate DES for encryption. Click here for more information.

NOTE: Please ensure the phase 2 lifetimes are equal on both ends of the tunnel whenever possible. While MX's can sometimes honor a shorter phase 2 lifetime if they're acting in response to build a tunnel, they cannot while serving as the initiator of the tunnel.

Peer availability

By default, a non-Meraki peer configuration applies to all MX-Z appliances in your Dashboard Organization. Since it is not always desirable for every appliance you control to form tunnels to a particular non-Meraki peer, the Availability column allows you to control which appliances within your Organization will connect to each peer. This control is based on network tags, which are labels you can apply to your Dashboard networks.

When 'All networks' is selected for a peer, all MX-Z appliances in the organization will connect to that peer. When a specific network tag or set of tags is selected, only networks that have one or more of the specified tags will connect to that peer.

More information on network tags can be found here.

VPN Firewall Rules

You can add firewall rules to control what traffic is allowed to pass through the VPN tunnel. These rules will apply to outbound VPN traffic to/from from all MX-Z appliances in the Organization that participate in site-to-site VPN. These rules are configured in the same manner as the Layer 3 firewall rules described on the Firewall Settings page of this documentation. Note that VPN Firewall rules will not apply to inbound traffic or to traffic that is not passing through the VPN.

We love the Cisco Meraki VPN at Telnexus. The MX security appliance is a powerful guardian and gateway between the wild Internet and your private Local Area Network (LAN). Here are the abbreviated instructions on how to connect your PC or Mac back to home base.

Meraki Documentation Link

For complete instructions as well as instructions for other versions of Windows and MacOS as well as Linux, iOS and Android, please consult the official Meraki documentation:

VPN Credentials

You should receive the following bits of information from your administrator:

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• IP address or hostname of your VPN server
• A “Preshared Key”
• Your username
• Your password

Windows 10 Meraki VPN Setup

Here are the basic steps:

1. Go to Settings->Network->VPN
2. Create a new L2TP/IPsec VPN
3. Name it “My Company VPN”
4. Enter the Server Address
5. Enter the Preshared Key
6. Enter your Username and Password
7. Complete the new VPN wizard
8. Select Adapter Options
9. Right-click on your new VPN, select Properties
10. Click on the Security tab, and then click “Allow these protocols”
11. Under “Allow these protocols” make sure “Unsecured password (PAP)” is the only one checked
12. Click OK to close the Properties box
13. Right-click on the new VPN icon and select Connect
14. Click Connect (again) in the Settings->Network->VPN window

For full documentation with screenshots please check the official Meraki documentation.

MacOS Meraki VPN Setup

Here are the basic steps:

1. Open System Preferences > Network from Mac applications menu. Click the “+” button to create a new service, then select VPN as the interface type, and choose L2TP over IPsec from the pull-down menu.
2. Enter your server address in Server Address
3. Enter your Meraki username in Username
4. Click Authentication Settings
5. Enter your Password in box the User Authentication section
6. Enter your Preshared Key in the Shared Secret box
7. Click OK to close the Authentical panel
8. Click Apply to save your settings
9. Click Connect to activate your VPN

Meraki Mx64 Configuration Guide

For full documentation with screenshots, please check the official Meraki documentation.