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kesteloot

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Connecting to Linksys RV042 VPN Router without using the Linksys VPN Client

I would like to be able to connect to my home office remotely from my laptop as well as provide access to a few colleagues.

I'm able to connect to my Linksys RV042 VPN Router using the Linksys VPN Client remotely.  Originally, I had visions of just using Windows XP's inherent ability to create a new network connection and tunneling in that way.

Some of my colleagues already have VPN software installed on their machine and apparently Linksys' product requires that no other VPN software is installed.  How difficult would it be to manually configure a VPN connection?  I have a basic understanding of routers, networking and the like, but I'm not very experienced so please take it easy on me.

A couple of notes:
  - Remote users all are running Windows XP
  - Assume that the remote users have no control over their IP and that they're operating outside of a firewall (i.e., just connecting to their ISP)
  - The VPN router has a fixed IP address

Thanks,

Erik

P.S.  This is the first question I've ever submitted, so please let me know if the point assignment is off.  I don't believe the question is that difficult, but very time consuming to answer.
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Rob Williams
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lrmoore,
I have seen several articles suggesting you cannot have more than one VPN client using IPSec, especially referencing the Linksys Quick VPN client. I included one below. But I am unsure as to why. I too have had multiple clients successfully running on my machines but I have had problems with some combinations of the Greenbow, Linksys and WatchGuard (SafeNet client), even when de-activated. You are far more familiar with VPN's than I, and I thought you might "shed some light" on when and why this occurs. I find the issue occurs more when the client creates a "virtual adapter", but I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Perhaps kesteloot may only expect problems with certain combinations of clients.

* "- DO NOT have any other vpn application LOADED on your machine other than quickvpn; even if you have another vpn application loaded and its process is shut off in the back ground, quickvpn still "will--not--run" if it's loaded. If you happen to be able to do this, you're quite fortunate, otherwise, load quickvpn only to avoid conflict."
from: http://www.linksysinfo.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=19
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kesteloot

ASKER

The manual configuration of the tunnel was too daunting of a task for me.  I was able to successfully put the Linksys client on the machine with another VPN client (Cisco's).  Perhaps they play nice together as their both the same company now.  Thanks for both of your quick responses; I apologize for taking so long to wrap up this question -- it took a while to get access to the appropriate machines.
Thanks kesteloot , glad you have a working solution.
--Rob