Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of sccomputer
sccomputer

asked on

Can't resolve workstation host name when it's connected via VPN connection

Hi this is an interesting situation. I have a remote location with two workstations that are connecting to our main office via vpn connection. I have a Cisco PIX in the main location and a Netgear router in the remote location. I have all of the network  settings on the remote workstations the same.They are in the 192.168.1.x subnet and receive their IP addresses via DHCP from the Netgear router. In the office we have DHCP setup on our Win2k3 DC's using the 192.168.0.x subnet. Routing and Remote Access is running on this server providing the VPN clients with IP addresses in the subnet 192.168.0.x

The problem that I am having is this. When the remote computers connect to the office via VPN,I cannot connect to one of the computers via hostname. The other one works fine. If I open Internet explorer and tyep: \\ computerA_name it opens fine and I can see the appropriate shares. The other computer if I type in \\computerB_name it doesn't connect. If i go to the win2k3 server and lookup the IP address it has obtained via Routing and Remote Access I can connect that way if I type \\192.168.0.??  and it connects without any issues. The problem I am having is that each time the remote computers connect via VPN they are assigned a new IP address via Routing and Remote Access and I need a way to connect using a host name. In the future we will be implementing a site to site VPN using the Netgear and Cisco if possble but until then they remote users have to connect using the Microsoft VPN clients on XP.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!!
Avatar of trinak96
trinak96

Check NIC config on the pc that wont resolve by name, you need to have netbios over tcp enabled.
Might not be this though, but it's a good place to start. If not look at hosts files etc on server/pc's
Avatar of sccomputer

ASKER

I am not sure if it's a NetBios issue because both workstations are identical hardware etc and the network settings are the same on both machines and 1 works and 1 doesn't. When I update the problem machines A record in DNS, the machine is able to be found via host name. Also if I am using DHCP does the Hosts file really matter?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of sccomputer
sccomputer

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial