Comparing DirectAccess and NetMotion Mobility – Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand! Comparing DirectAccess and NetMotion Mobility free live webinar Thursday, November 29 at 10:00AM AEDT. Register here!

DirectAccess on Windows Server 2016 CoreFor many years, DirectAccess has been the gold standard for enterprise remote access. Its seamless and transparent operation improves productivity for mobile workers, and since it is always on, administrators enjoy improved visibility and management for their field-based assets.

As incredible as DirectAccess is, it is not without its limitations. For example, DirectAccess works only with Windows Enterprise edition clients that are joined to the domain. Professional Edition and non-domain joined machines are not supported. It also lacks many of the security features enterprise organizations require, such as device health checks and granular network access. In addition, DirectAccess communication is complex, with many different layers of encapsulation, authentication, and encryption. High protocol overhead can lead to poor performance over high latency or low bandwidth connections.

NetMotion Mobility as an Alternative to DirectAccessNetMotion Mobility is a secure remote access solution that is an excellent alternative to DirectAccess. It provides the same seamless, transparent, always on remote connectivity that DirectAccess provides, while at the same time offering much more in terms of features and capabilities. It supports a much broader range of clients, includes native Network Access Control (NAC) and application filtering, and offers enhanced performance.

To learn more about NetMotion Mobility, join me on Thursday, November 29 at 10:00AM AEDT (UTC +11) for a free live webinar with NetMotion. I’ll provide an overview of NetMotion Mobility and how it compares with DirectAccess. I’ll also demonstrate how it can help overcome some of the inherent limitations of DirectAccess too. Register today!

DirectAccess and NetMotion Mobility Webinar

DirectAccess Get-NetIPHttpsState Fails on Windows 10 1803

DirectAccess Get-NetIPHttpsState Fails on Windows 10 1803PowerShell is an essential tool for Windows administrators for configuration, task automation, monitoring, reporting, and problem resolution. When troubleshooting DirectAccess connectivity using the IP-HTTPS IPv6 transition technology, the Get-NetIPHttpsConfiguration and Get-NetIPHttpsState PowerShell commands are important for assessing the configuration and current state of the IP-HTTPS connection. When DirectAccess connectivity fails, these are some of the first commands an administrator will use to identify and resolve the issue.

Get-NetIPHttpsState

Get-NetIPHttpsState is especially helpful when IP-HTTPS connectivity fails because it returns an error code and interface status information that can provide clues as to why the connection was not completed successfully.

DirectAccess Get-NetIPHttpsState Fails on Windows 10 1803

No Output in 1803

Beginning with Windows 10 1803, the DirectAccess administrator will notice that Get-NetIPHttpsState returns no data. The output of Get-NetIPHttpsState is blank.

DirectAccess Get-NetIPHttpsState Fails on Windows 10 1803

Changes in 1803

As it turns out, this is a bug first introduced in Windows 10 1803 that is the result of a fundamental change in the way in which the IP-HTTPS interface is implemented in Windows. As of this writing, the bug has not been addressed in Windows 10 1803 or 1809.

Workaround

The good news is that there’s an easy workaround for this. Instead of using Get-NetIPHttpsState, the administrator can retrieve essential information about the IP-HTTPS interface using the following netsh command.

netsh interface httpstunnel show interface

DirectAccess Get-NetIPHttpsState Fails on Windows 10 1803

Additional Information

SSL Certificate Considerations for DirectAccess IP-HTTPS 

Troubleshooting DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Error Code 0x800b0109

Troubleshooting DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Error Code 0x80090326

Troubleshooting DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Error Code 0x90320

Troubleshooting DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Error Code 0x2af9

Troubleshooting DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Error Code 0x800b0101

Always On VPN Device Tunnel Missing in Windows 10 UI

Always On VPN Device Tunnel Missing in Windows 10 UIUnlike DirectAccess, Always On VPN connections are provisioned to the user, not the machine. Beginning with Windows 10 release 1709 Microsoft introduced the device tunnel option to provide feature parity with DirectAccess. The device tunnel provides pre-logon network connectivity to support important deployment scenarios such as logging on without cached credentials and unattended remote systems management.

Device Tunnel Configuration

Guidance for creating and deploying a device tunnel connection can be found here. It’s important to note that the device tunnel is always on by default. Also, there can only be a single device tunnel configured per device. You must remove an existing device tunnel before configuring a new one.

Known Issues

After configuring a Windows 10 Always On VPN device tunnel the administrator may notice two anomalies. First, the device tunnel is missing in the Windows UI after it is created. Second, viewing the status of the device tunnel connection using PowerShell indicates the connection is “disconnected” even though it is connected.

Device Tunnel Missing

As you can see below, event though both a device and user tunnel have been provisioned, the Windows UI reports only a single Always On VPN connection, that being the user connection.

Always On VPN Device Tunnel Missing in Windows 10 UI

However, the device tunnel does appear in the Network Connections control panel applet (ncpa.cpl), as shown here.

Always On VPN Device Tunnel Missing in Windows 10 UI

This is expected and by design. The device tunnel is not displayed to the user in the Windows UI as it is provisioned to the machine, not the user. It appears on the Control Panel because the applet is capable of enumerating both user and system connections.

Device Tunnel Disconnected

The status of the Windows 10 Always On VPN device tunnel connection can be viewed by running the Get-VpnConnection -AllUserConnection PowerShell command. However, at the time of this writing, PowerShell always reports the connection status as “Disconnected”. This appears to be a bug; one which Microsoft is hopefully working to address.

Always On VPN Device Tunnel Missing in Windows 10 UI

Summary

The Windows 10 Always On VPN device tunnel option allows administrators to enable scenarios previously supported with DirectAccess, including logging on without cached credentials and unattended remote support. Not all deployments require a device tunnel, but it is an important option available to administrators to address specific use cases.

Additional Information

Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel Configuration using PowerShell

Windows 10 Always On VPN RasMan Device Tunnel Failure

Deleting a Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel