VPN Problem - Vonage Linksys wrtp54g router

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 24, 2005 Posts: 6

trekologer wrote:

A GRE packet is neither TCP or UDP. Port forwarding on these routers only forwards TCP and/or UDP packets, depending on what is selected. If the VPN is using GRE packets then port forwarding isn't going to work since the router (both RTP300 and WRTP54G in this case) doesn't recognize GRE packets and therefore won't forward them even if the ports are forwarded. Some VPNs do not use GRE packets and therefore port forwarding WILL work.

This still doesn't explain the fact that it DOES work, and the failure is consistently reproducible.

trekologer wrote:

Instead turn the VPN pass-throughs on and put your PC in the DMZ of the router. DMZ forwards everything, regardless of the packet type. This works in MOST cases.

Uh, place my system in the DMZ? Either you are some GURU with elevated knowledge the supersedes my years of experience, you're a HACKER hoping to sucker someone, or you have no idea what you are talking about.

Please explain your recommendation.

Posts: 143 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Dec 22, 2005 Posts: 143

This may sound really weird, but try disabling it and see what happens.

Posts: 143 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Dec 22, 2005 Posts: 143

Please explain how you got your VPN to work through our router, your setup and everything because I am quite intrigued.

Posts: 350 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Dec 04, 2005 Posts: 350

Mav wrote:

Uh, place my system in the DMZ? Either you are some GURU with elevated knowledge the supersedes my years of experience, you're a HACKER hoping to sucker someone, or you have no idea what you are talking about.

Please explain your recommendation.

With port forwarding, the router forwards unrequested incoming data received to the specified port using the specified IP protocol to the specified host on the network. There are several IP protocols, the most frequently used being TCP and UDP. The router supports port forwarding using TCP and UDP protocols. However, it does not support port forwarding using the other IP protocols (of which there are quite a few but seldomly used). To the port forwarding feature of the router, any data packets that are not TCP or UDP don't get passed through by port forwarding.

DMZ (or De-Militerized Zone), unlike port forwarding, doesn't care which IP protocol is being used. All unrequested incoming data is forwarded to the specified host on the network. Since DMZ isn't looking for data using a specific protocol or on a specific port, it will, under most circumstances, pass through data packets that use the other IP protocols as well.

Now it is true that DMZ can possibly open up your PC to some exploits since all unrequested data, which ordinarilly would be discarded by the router, are now forwarded to the specified host. But you get the same thing if you connect your PC directly to the cable modem.

For the record, you could say that I am a guru. I work for Vonage and know these devices inside and out.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 24, 2005 Posts: 6

Trinijoy wrote:

Please explain how you got your VPN to work through our router, your setup and everything because I am quite intrigued.

First off, we are talking VPN clients, right?

I'm using the standard MS VPN client. No special voodoo there. The only modification to the VPN's default network settings was to NOT use the remote network's default gateway, and to specify a DNS suffix.

On the router? Hmm. Ah yes. That part was more tricky. I don't remember the exact OOTB firmware that I had (might have been .18 or so?), but I couldn't VPN, and I think it was having trouble connecting to Vonage as well.

After a few days of things not working right and getting NO LOVE from Vonage on my requests for help, I hit these forums. I found info about an illicit .29 rev. I call it "illicit" as it was not being openly offered by Vonage or LinkSys as a self-help download.

When I installed that, things magically started working, and that very night my system upgraded itself to to .37 or something. Currently my router is running .58.

So I did nothing, configuration-wise, to make it work.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 24, 2005 Posts: 6

Mav wrote:

Uh, place my system in the DMZ? Either you are some GURU with elevated knowledge that supersedes my years of experience, you're a HACKER hoping to sucker someone, or you have no idea what you are talking about.

Please explain your recommendation.

trekologer wrote:

Now it is true that DMZ can possibly open up your PC to some exploits since all unrequested data, which ordinarilly would be discarded by the router, are now forwarded to the specified host. But you get the same thing if you connect your PC directly to the cable modem.

For the record, you could say that I am a guru. I work for Vonage and know these devices inside and out.

How many people are benefiting from the router's firewall, possibly without even knowing it? Have you ever looked at the stats of how few people keep their machines patched? How many people have you opened up to attack with this kind of advice?

Dude, no major offence intended, but your advice to put machine’s in the DMZ without any warnings does not make you a “guru” in my book.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 16, 2005 Posts: 6

Mav wrote:

After a few days of things not working right and getting NO LOVE from Vonage on my requests for help, I hit these forums. I found info about an illicit .29 rev. I call it "illicit" as it was not being openly offered by Vonage or LinkSys as a self-help download.

When I installed that, things magically started working, and that very night my system upgraded itself to to .37 or something. Currently my router is running .58.

So I did nothing, configuration-wise, to make it work.

My router came with 1.00.58 out of the box. I still can't connect to my VPN. Any other suggestions?

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 03, 2004 Posts: 6

To add to this thread (with no deep substance). I have a WRTP54G and I connect to PPTP VPN networks all day long. I'm a network consultant and connect to probably 5 or 6 different networks per day.
All of the networks are PPTP (port 1723)
No port mapping or anything special was needed. It just worked.
Of course PPTP pass through is enabled.

I am not able to open two connections at the same time (from two machines on my home lan). But single connections work 100% of the time.

firmware = 1.00.58

Jeff

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 09, 2005 Posts: 2

Hi, I've been following the threads on the VPN discussions but have had no luck setting up a Windows XP VPN server behind the RT31P2 (1.30.01) router. The server accepts connections if plugged directly into the cable modem. On the router I've tried enabling VPN passthrough's and forwarding ports 1723, 500, 50, 47. I think I understand that because of the types of packets used by VPN, none of the above will work. In theory, enabling DMZ should be akin to plugging the server into the cable modem(?). But still no luck - error 721. Has anyone been able to set up a VPN server behind the RT31P2 router?

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 09, 2005 Posts: 2

By the way - the Windows XP client is also behind a RT31P2 router and connects no problem to the VPN server (if the server is plugged into it's cable modem).