Hi,
I have the following situation:
I'm trying to connect to my employers VPN service from home. I have ADSL with a provider called Bredbandsbolaget (Swedish). When I connect my stationary computer or my laptop directly to the ADSL modem, the VPN works fine. When I connect my Linksys router to the modem and then the stationary PC to the router or the laptop to the router via 802.11g then the VPN client doesn't work.
I have the following equipment:
no-name ADSL modem looks very much like an Alcatel Speedtouch Linksys WRT54GX-v2 wireless router/switch/firewall with 2.00.8 firmware (latest available) PC with WinXP Pro SP2, windows firewall disabled, Norton AV. laptop with WinXP Home SP2, windows firewall disabled, McAfee AV.
Nortel Contivity Client 5.01d
I have tried the following suggestions separately and together:
Opened IPSEC passthrough in the router Opened UDP ports 500, 8000 (needed by employer), 1723 Put the PC on the DMZ (if this fails then it must mean its not a port problem right?) Assigned a static IP to the PC outside of the DHCP range of the router reflashed the firmware in the router (note that the router works fine in every other aspect other than using VPN)
For one thing, IPSEC passthrough doesnt seem to work in this router, because all it should do is open up port 500 UDP, but if I enable this, the the host name cannot be reached. As soon as I open port 500 UDP manually, then the host can at least be reached! Also, using port forwarding does not work either--I have to enable port 500 with port triggering. I do not understand why this is different, but it doesn't seem right. I opened a port for FTP and BitTorrent using port forwarding and these both work fine! Once I open these ports (500 &
8000) then I get past the initial contact stage and then it hangs on a message saying "Retrieving banner text".According to a Nortel tech document, this means I have a router blocking NAT traffic. Unfortunately, they give no real solution--they just explain all about NAT and ESP/AH etc etc. I have colleagues with all-in-one ADSL modems/routers that can connect without problems, but I have not found anyone else who has a separate modem and router. I have spoken to Linksys support many times and received dumbass suggestions that have not solved the problem. I am sick of hearing "have you flashed the router with the latest firmware". Yes, I have. Twice. I have also tried an old Netgear RP614 router and it has the same issue, so I suspect it's a problem with NAT not getting through the modem then router to the PC rather than it being a pure Linksys fault.
If anyone has any advice I would very much appreciate it.
Regards, Andrew