VPN Problems

[The Dad Fisherman]

Thought I'd throw this out to you guys. I'm having a problem at work running a Microsoft VPN. It was working fine for about 6 months and now all of a sudden it is having a hard time holding a connection. I'll try to ping a server after I connect to the VPN and it time out but wait 3-4 minutes and it works, wait another 3-4 minutes and it doesn't. It only happens through the VPN tunnel, everything internally is fine. I've changed servers, switches, IP Ranges and even ISP's for this and the problem still persists.

Any suggestions would be MUCH appreciated as the sales force is really beginning to whine....thanx

[The Dad Fisherman]

Just an FYI. I finally figured this one out after about 2 1/2 weeks. Just to save anyone else the heartache, you can't configure a VPN on a server that has 2 NIC's on the same Subnet. Also be aware that if you run the VPN wizard to set up your server it makes you put in a 2nd NIC which in turn almost forces you into the 1st issue.

I had to install manually and only use 1 NIC to get it to work and disabled the other. Just in case anybody else gets bit by this one.

[JohnR]

TDF - just saw this. For your VPN you need two nics, a public & a private. In a basic install they would be on seperate newtorks so that would eliminate your first issue but some higher end systems will allow you to load balance and add additional VPN adapters for load balance and redundancy. 'Course this adds a LOT more rules.

I try to steer away from using standard MS VPN (L2TP/PPTP) and go with IPSEC based stuff. Even open source

[The Dad Fisherman]

I think the big problem was me getting tunnel vision (it happens once in awhile) I was using the microsoft VPN for 6 months and it was working flawlessly then all of a sudden it was crapping out. I assumed (Bad Thing) that since it worked so well for so long it couldn't be a configuration issue so I tried all of the other things I thought it could be. I started building a new server but was reproducing the same bad configuration on it.

I'd like to get a better VPN solution than MS's but this company is tough to get them to throw money into I.T.

By the way, Great Job with this site. Being new to the whole Striper/Surf fishing thing I've gotten a ton of help and useful info from it. Besides where else can you learn to rig an eel AND troubleshoot a VPN on the same website.

Thanx again, TDF