Troubleshooting VPN Connection Issues in Office Environments

When connecting to VPN from an office environment, you may experience issues accessing databases or other resources that work fine when connecting from home. This is typically caused by DNS resolution conflicts between your office network and the VPN connection. Symptoms Common signs of this issue include: Unable to connect to databases while on VPN Cannot ping or reach internal resources DNS lookup failures when trying to resolve internal hostnames VPN connects successfully but resources are unreachable Resolution To resolve this issue, you'll need to configure your DNS settings to use Google's public DNS servers: On Mac: Go to System Settings → Network → Wi-Fi Click "Details" for your connected network Select the "DNS" tab Add 8.8.8.8 as your DNS server On Windows: Open Network & Internet settings Click "Change adapter options" Right-click your network connection and select "Properties" Select "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" Click "Properties" Select "Use the following DNS server addresses" Enter 8.8.8.8 as the Preferred DNS server Verification After making these changes, verify your connection by: Reconnecting to the VPN Attempting to connect to your internal resources Testing DNS resolution using commands like nslookup or dig against internal hostnames If you're in a managed office environment, check with your IT team before making DNS changes as they may have specific requirements or preferred settings.