ckentrus
asked on
Linksys VPN Tunnel
I have searched the sight and not found exactly what i need. I have my two Linksys routers setup. One at the house, one at my office (small office with 2 pc's). Both routers are connected and joined together. How do i access resources on my work network from home. Linksys will give no support other then help with joining the two together and that part works fine.
dlongan
You need to setup your home computer to be part of your work network. You haven't stated if you have a domain or workgroup at home. But in either case you need "join" the domain or workgroup at work.
If you have the two routers connected then you are half way there. Login to the router at work foward ports 135 through 139 to the ip address range that you want (mostly likely 192.168.0.1-254, and this subnet 255.255.255.0). Because you are on a VPN, then from the home computer type \\name_of_desired_computer
Login to the router at work AND foward ports 135 ...sorry :)
If you have the VPN connection you DO NOT have to forward any PORTS. The VPN is what it is, a VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK, basically an extension of your two networks tied together. All protocols will traverse the network via the VPN. Without joining the domain or workgroup you may be able to "map" network drives to access resources, but it's cleaner to do the join.
In my first post I asked if you had a domain or workgroup at home, It was suppose to be "work". Also opening up any PORTS on your linksys's will only invite someone into your networks un-invited...
YOu need Linksys VPN endpoint routers to do this. I just set up such a config, works terrific.
What are your models, they are likely NOT VPN endpoint routers.
What are your models, they are likely NOT VPN endpoint routers.
Are you trying to ask how to actually set it up on the PC's? you have your routers setup right, but you need to set it up on the PC's?
If so, Do you have windows XP?
If so, Do you have windows XP?
From the author post stating "Both routers are connected and joined together" I assuming they have VPN capabilities and a vpn tunnel has been created successfully, if not you would need to create a vpn tunnel with your home computer and one located on your work network. Or purchase routers that have VPN, such as the Linksys RV042. I have setup numrous vpn tunnels using this model. Also you would need to ensure IPSEC Passthru is enabled on your current routers.
If the VPN tunnel is working then you just share drives on BOTH systems, and you MAP a network drive from one to the other, and the first to the second. It is just like normal networking -- NO different.
If you cannot find the shared resources of the other computer at the end of the VPN, either networking is NOT setup right on either system or both -- OR the VPN tunnel is not up.
Networking and sharing drives is a lot simpler than VPNing, believe me. I suspect the tunnel is not working.
If you cannot find the shared resources of the other computer at the end of the VPN, either networking is NOT setup right on either system or both -- OR the VPN tunnel is not up.
Networking and sharing drives is a lot simpler than VPNing, believe me. I suspect the tunnel is not working.
ASKER
To clarify for some here, there are two LINKSYS BEFSX41 VPN Routers. They are connected and status window in VPN area does say "connected". My home computer is 192.168.2.X The work network is a domain and is 192.168.1.x. I cannot ping any work ip's from home, the routers don't appear to be passing any protocols back and forth so i can see how this isn't working yet. i have to try the port forwarding as stated by some.
If it says connected, then you are connected. It's a matter of windows networking from there. There is no need for specific port powarding. Understand that the VPN puts you on the local network, just as if you were sitting in the office. SO it is a matter of login privileges, same protocols, same workgroup, and all that other windows stuff. When Connected, you need to start thinking of the local network -- unless the IPSec is not configured right.
Ok now that we have a little more info we can help some more. Again DO NOT open any ports on the linksys's. Also since you are unable to PING a computer on the work network then this is NOT a WINDOWS issue. It's basic IP networking that we need to concentrate on. How about getting some more info regarding your network at work? Is the linksys VPN router the only router that interfaces with the INTERNET? I suspect that the default gateway settings could be the issue.
When you create a VPN, you need to define the end point IP addresess for exammple:
Home network = 192.168.2.X
Work network = 192.168.1.X
Both routers will also have an local IP address assigned, if they are correctly setup you should be able to ping these, this would be the first step I would take in troubleshooting. If you can PING these addreses, but not anything else on the remote network, then your remote network doesn't know how to communicate with the local network and you have confirmed the vpn is setup correctly. Most of the time this is caused by the remote network having multiple routers, or the default gateway is not defined properly. Once you get the PING to function, you would then need to concentrate on the Windows Networking aspects.
When you create a VPN, you need to define the end point IP addresess for exammple:
Home network = 192.168.2.X
Work network = 192.168.1.X
Both routers will also have an local IP address assigned, if they are correctly setup you should be able to ping these, this would be the first step I would take in troubleshooting. If you can PING these addreses, but not anything else on the remote network, then your remote network doesn't know how to communicate with the local network and you have confirmed the vpn is setup correctly. Most of the time this is caused by the remote network having multiple routers, or the default gateway is not defined properly. Once you get the PING to function, you would then need to concentrate on the Windows Networking aspects.
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Thanks dlongan for all the help today, one end is 192.168.1.x the other 192.168.2.x. technically speaking, how is one side of the network made aware of the presence of the other end. On similar setups i've seen in the past once the VPN is established and you do an ipconfig you see two sets of ip's respectively.
the networks are as generic as it gets, comcast modem into the router into the network. Server at work, just one lonely pc here at home.
Does it matter at work that the router is not doing DHCP? the windows 2000 server is generating ip's on work end. Only at home does the linksys generate ip's.
When you click the statistics button under the VPN section of the router it's displaying the correct ip information for either end as well the wan address'
the networks are as generic as it gets, comcast modem into the router into the network. Server at work, just one lonely pc here at home.
Does it matter at work that the router is not doing DHCP? the windows 2000 server is generating ip's on work end. Only at home does the linksys generate ip's.
When you click the statistics button under the VPN section of the router it's displaying the correct ip information for either end as well the wan address'
<< Does it matter at work that the router is not doing DHCP? the windows 2000 server is generating ip's on work end. Only at home does the linksys generate ip's. >>
No it doesn't matter if the work IPs are static, but it DOES matter if the 2000 server is generating the IPS. That is 150% of the problem, right there.
If you let the router do the DHCP, which it should, as it is so much more efficient than windows at managing IP addresses, you will instantly solve this problem. When 2000 is doing DHCP, you must ALSO ALLOW VPN traffic into, through and out the 2000 server, otherwise it will stope everything.
This is more complicated than you might think, as usual, MS makes nothing like this simple --
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=http://support.microsoft.com%2Fservicedesks%2Fwebcasts%2Fen%2Fwc110900%2Fwct110900.asp
http://www.chicagotech.net/vpnsetup.htm
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/itsc/network/vpn/pptp_win2k_setting.html
No it doesn't matter if the work IPs are static, but it DOES matter if the 2000 server is generating the IPS. That is 150% of the problem, right there.
If you let the router do the DHCP, which it should, as it is so much more efficient than windows at managing IP addresses, you will instantly solve this problem. When 2000 is doing DHCP, you must ALSO ALLOW VPN traffic into, through and out the 2000 server, otherwise it will stope everything.
This is more complicated than you might think, as usual, MS makes nothing like this simple --
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=http://support.microsoft.com%2Fservicedesks%2Fwebcasts%2Fen%2Fwc110900%2Fwct110900.asp
http://www.chicagotech.net/vpnsetup.htm
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/itsc/network/vpn/pptp_win2k_setting.html
Doesn't really matter which does the DHCP on your system at work, what matter is if it's configured correctly. Since you only have a single computer on your network at work, you don't even need DHCP. In fact I would be inclined to recommend that you manually configure your server IP parmeters anyway (ip address, sub netmask, DNS, and default gateway). In looking to the future, it would be easy to have your router perform the DHCP for any client that you potential add later. But the call is yours, if you are comfortable in setting up the server to perfom DHCP just ensure you configure the default gateway, dns, and ip address range.
sciwriter I must disagree with your comment about when the server is performing DHCP and the VPN configuration we are working with, I have setup many of VPN networks and the routers NOT performing DHCP. I wonder if your are confusing PPTP VPN's, because I would then agree with your comment about it causing an issue. But you are not using PPTP and the server is not performing any of the VPN functions. It's all being done with the Linksys. What matters is all devices on the local network are configured properly (ip address, subnet, gateway, dns)
sciwriter I must disagree with your comment about when the server is performing DHCP and the VPN configuration we are working with, I have setup many of VPN networks and the routers NOT performing DHCP. I wonder if your are confusing PPTP VPN's, because I would then agree with your comment about it causing an issue. But you are not using PPTP and the server is not performing any of the VPN functions. It's all being done with the Linksys. What matters is all devices on the local network are configured properly (ip address, subnet, gateway, dns)