It seems like this should be a fairly common topic, and probably addressed elsewhere, but searching this and other groups as well as googling has failed to yield anything useful.
My home network is on a FiOS internet connection, which runs through a Verizon (ActionTec) wireless router/switch.(WI1524WR or something like that) I have 3 machines, a Windows 2000 server acting as domain controller, a Compaq desktop running Windows XP Pro (SP2), and a Dell laptop running Windows 2000 Pro (SP4). I am trying to configure the router to pass VPN requests through to the XP machine so I can access it with the laptop from outside. I have Windows configured to respond to VPN requests, and have the laptop configured to connect as a VPN client. The connection made from inside the firewall (directly to the local hostname) works fine. I also have a second connection configured to go through the external IP, and connecting to it always fails with an Error 678: There was no answer. This is true whether I am connecting inside the house, or from a WiFi hot spot. The two VPN connections (local and remote) are configured identically except for the hostname, so I believe the VPN client and server setups are correct. I think it has to be the router configuration for VPN passthrough. (The FiOS IP is dynamic, but I've got it set up to route through dyndns.org).
The "Port Forwarding" screen on the router is showing setup to pass the following protocols through to the XP desktop: (I'm not sure exactly what all of these mean, I just configured from bits and pieces I found in different articles, using the configuration menus available on the router) GRE L2TP-UDP Any ->1701 IPSec - UDP 500-> 500 ESP AH TCP Any -> 1723
When I attempted to connect over the VPN connection from a WiFi hotspot, this is what appeared in the router security log (newest is on top, so read from the bottom)
Apr 3 10:00:54 2008 Inbound Traffic Connection closed TCP
192.168.1.152 1723 71.170.239.192 1723 [71.97.118.241 45717] CLOSED/SYN_SENT clink0 Incoming STATICApr 3 10:00:54 2008 Outbound Traffic Connection closed TCP
71.97.118.241 45717 71.97.118.241 45717[192.168.1.152 1723 ] SYN_SENT/CLOSED br0 OutgoingApr 3 10:00:53 2008 Outbound Traffic Connection opened TCP
71.97.118.241 45734 71.97.118.241 45734[192.168.1.152 1723 ] CLOSED/CLOSED br0 OutgoingApr 3 10:00:53 2008 Inbound Traffic Accepted - Service TCP
71.97.118.241:45734->192.168.1.152:1723 on clink0Apr 3 10:00:53 2008 Inbound Traffic Connection opened TCP
192.168.1.152 1723 71.170.239.192 1723 [71.97.118.241 45734] CLOSED/SYN_SENT clink0 Incoming STATIC(192.168.1.152 is the local IP of the XP desktop. 71.170.239.192 is the external (FiOS) IP of the router, 71.97.118.241 is the IP of the hotspot where I was sending from.)
Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong and what to do to fix it?
Thanks.