Reading Time: 10 minutes9 Introduction Like many home users, my broadband connection comes with a dynamically assigned public IP address. This means that my IP can change at any time sometimes without notice, which can be a problem when I want to access services hosted at home, like a self-hosted server or VPN. Instead of relying on a third-party Dynamic […]
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OpenVPN Site-to-Site setup
Reading Time: 23 minutes21 Introduction Setting up a Site-to-Site VPN is a powerful way to securely link two remote networks—such as a home lab and a cloud environment—so they behave as if they’re on the same local network. While there are several technologies available to achieve this, choosing the right one often comes down to your specific network constraints and goals. […]
Continue readingDeploying Azure Virtual Desktop – A Modular, Automated Approach
Reading Time: 9 minutes7 Introduction Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is Microsoft’s comprehensive Desktop-as-a-Service platform, enabling secure remote access to Windows desktops and apps from virtually anywhere. While powerful, deploying AVD in a robust, enterprise-ready manner can be complex: it requires careful orchestration of network, identity, security, storage, and user access. Manual configuration is time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to scale or […]
Continue readingWindows Image Prep Tool for Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition
Reading Time: 8 minutes7 Introduction A while back I wrote a post about my experience with getting my Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition working with a clean install of Windows 11, you can see the post here: Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition – Andy Kemp. Well I decided to look at this in more depth as I noticed when […]
Continue readingUsing Cloud PKI with Always On VPN
Reading Time: 8 minutes4 Using Microsoft Cloud PKI With Always On VPN Introduction I have been playing around with Always On VPN recently. Using it with Domain, Hybrid and Entra Joined devices. As you will be aware Always on VPN heavily relies on Certificates and requires an Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS) PKI infrastructure. When using Domain and or […]
Continue readingAlways On VPN Entra Join – Part 5 Deploy Always On VPN for Entra Joined Devices
Reading Time: 6 minutes3 This is part 5 of my Always On VPN series You can review the pervious posts if required: Introduction So we now have everything in place for Always On VPN. All we need to do now is to deploy the certificates and the VPN Profile to an Entra Joined device. There are 2 certificates needed […]
Continue readingAlways On VPN Entra Join – Part 4 Configure Always On VPN for Entra Joined Devices
Reading Time: 12 minutes7 This is part 4 of my Always On VPN series You can review the pervious posts if required: Introduction The infrastructure you have in its current state is great if you’re still running everything from a Domain Joined perspective. If you are, then why? I don’t mean to sound patronising , pushing, arrogant, or maybe […]
Continue readingAlways On VPN Entra Join – Part 3 Core Always On VPN Infrastructure
Reading Time: 16 minutes9 This is part 3 of my Always On VPN series You can review the pervious posts if required: Introduction Now we have the certificates available the next step is to configure the certificates and then deploy and configure the servers. This part of the series will cover off configuring the certificates on the servers, installing […]
Continue readingAlways On VPN Entra Join – Part 2 Certificate Templates
Reading Time: 10 minutes6 This is part 2 of my Always On VPN series You can review the pervious posts if required: Introduction Certificates are at the heart of Always On VPN as this is what is used to authenticate the user. Group Policy needs to be updated when deploying the certificates to servers and users via Active Directory. […]
Continue readingAlways On VPN Entra Join – Part 1 Whats needed
Reading Time: 4 minutes2 This is part 1 of my Always On VPN series You can review the pervious posts if required: Introduction Always on VPN is a technology thats been around for some time now almost 10 years or so. It replaced Direct Access that enabled Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 (oh and 8) Enterprise clients to connect […]
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