Computer Gurus: VPN issues ...
 

I'm trying to help my brother-in-law solve a menacing problem with his VPN.

He is trying to connect to his company's VPN via the Cisco VPN client software. I have never done this before - I've only linked VPNs together across the Internet and have little experience with the client. Here's what happens:

1. He has cable modem high-speed service at home. He cannot connect to his PC at work via Remote Desktop from home - states that the machine can't be found. Indeed, it cannot. Ping requests and tracerts fail.

2. If I disable the NIC and use his Earthlink dial-up service, I can get into his PC at work with no problem. It's slllllllllllllllllllllow, but works.

Initially. I thought it might be a problem with the router. He's using a Linksys Wireless-G broadband router, which has worked fine thus far. I tried to tweak a few settings in the router, and even attempted to expose his home machine to the Internet by making it a DMZ host. All of my efforts produced no favorable results. I really can't think of anything else to tweak in the router to make this work.

Another thought I had was perhaps the ISP has some kind of block filter on VPN protocols and it can't work. I can VNC to his machine though - set that up in the router, and the Internet IP is dynamially routable, so I made the few port changes in the router and can get in with no problems. If this works, I would highly doubt that VPN services wouldn't.

Anybody have any insights or further things I could try?

Thanks!
-Michael

Michael, I don't know squat about your question, but I am intrigued by your nome de plume. Are you a theology prof.?

The ISP could be blocking the port, are you using a VPN Router? Where does tracert fail?

A simple set up is SSH sentinel on one end and VPN Router on the other.

google: vpn turorial

I googled: vpn tutorial cisco linksys, the first return was:
http://www.homenethelp.com/vpn/router-client-problems.asp

There were more interesting looking hits.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to bet money that it has something to do with his ISP - he has used the VPN client at hotels and in other high speed "areas", and he can get on with no problems. I will check with the ISP and see what I can come up with there.

As for my "nom de plume" - it's latin for "one who builds up or gives rise to the Church." I was just ordained a Catholic priest this past May, and I've used that username on some other online services ... something subtle and intriguing. :)

Will keep you updated on what I find out about this VPN thing ...

Thanks!

Pax,
Michael