Once you’ve installed the Twingate Client, you’ll be able to connect to your network and start accessing your Resources.

Connecting to your network

When you run Twingate for the first time, you’ll be walked through the steps to connect to your network. For all platforms, you’ll need to provide your network URL, e.g. auto from autoco.twingate.com. Then, you’ll sign in via your social login, like Google or Github, or your SSO provider, like Okta or Entra. Once you’re signed in, you’ll be ready to access your Resources.

Accessing Resources

Once you’re connected via the Twingate Client, you’ll be able to access any resource or application in the normal way, whether via the browser, SSH, RDP, or any other application.

Resource authentication

Resources may require additional authentication to access them based on their Security Policy. For example, if your minimum authentication requirements do not require MFA but a Resource’s Security Policy does, you’ll need to authenticate for that specific Resource before accessing it. In the Client, Resources that require additional authentication will have a lock icon by their name.

You can authenticate for a Resource in two ways. The simplest way to authenticate is to simply visit a Resource like you normally would. Twingate will trigger a notification to authenticate. Click this notification to open a browser window to complete any additional authentication steps. Alternatively, to manually authenticate, find the Resource in the Client, open its menu, and select Authenticate. Similarly to clicking the notification, you’ll be redirected to the browser to complete any additional authentication steps.

Resource authorization expiration

Access to a Resource expires after a set amount of time. Authorization will expire based on which Security Policy is applied when a user is accessing that Resource. When authorization expires, you’ll need to re-authenticate to regain access to your Resources.

Proactive reauthentication

To proactively reauthenticate for a Resource, navigate to it in the Client, open its menu, and click Renew Session. This will prompt you to complete authentication and renew your authorization session.

Proactive reauthentication notifications

Proactive reauthentication notifications are an early access feature. When proactive reauthentication notifications are enabled, the Client will notify you when an authorization for a Resource is about to expire. By clicking this notification, you can reauthenticate your session and continue using your Resource uninterrupted. These notifications remind you to reauthenticate and mean you don’t have to find a Resource in the Client to renew your session or keep track of when it’ll expire.

Reach out to have the Twingate team enable proactive reauthentication notifications for your account.

Tips

You may leave the Client connected

There is no need to disconnect and reconnect the Client. Any network traffic that is not destined for an internal resource will be ignored by Twingate. This behavior is called “split tunneling”, meaning that traffic is split between traffic destined to Resources and traffic destined to anything else. Twingate won’t slow down your traffic if you leave it running, plus you won’t have to reauthenticate because you quit the Client.

You can connect from any network

If you switch networks or the network connection is interrupted, the Twingate Client on your device should automatically reconnect. When this happens, it may automatically open a browser window to authenticate you via your identity provider. If this does not happen automatically, check the Client. If it is disconnected, you may click Connect to… to reconnect.