[Windows 2003] VPN Hell

  • Thread starter Thread starter Massimo
  • Start date Start date
M

Massimo

After a while of struggling with Win2K3's RRAS, I think some help is needed.
I'm the network administrator of an IT company, and I'm trying to set up a
VPN between our main office and some servers housed by an ISP. Our office's
LAN uses addresses 192.168.42.0/255.255.255.0, with 192.168.42.11 and
192.168.42.12 being DCs and DNSs (it's a Windows 2003 native-mode domain). A
Windows 2003 computer manages routing and RAS; it has two NICs, one private
(IP address 192.168.42.1, used as the default gateway by every compute rof
the LAN) and one public. The public NIC uses the address X.Y.Z.66, and is
connected to a small hub where our ISP's router (X.Y.Z.65) is also
connected. So, it works like this:

LAN ----- (192.168.42.1) RRAS (X.Y.Z.66) ----- HUB ----- (X.Y.Z.65)
ROUTER ----- Internet

The RRAS server manages NAT for the private LAN (doing also some port
forwarding for our web and mail server) and VPN access for remote users.

Now, I'm trying to set up a VPN between our remote servers' LAN and ours;
before actually taking the servers to the ISP, I'm doing some tests in the
lab... and I'm having quite peculiar troubles. Here's my test environment:

TESTSERVER (192.168.50.11) ----- (192.168.50.1) TESTRRAS (X.Y.Z.67) -----
HUB

As can be seen, I'm setting up another private LAN, with a test RRAS server
which will create the VPN with the main office. For testing purposes, I gave
another of our public IPs to the test RRAS's public interface, and connected
it to our public LAN's hub (the same as the main router and RRAS). I already
got the NAT up and running on the test LAN, and I'm now trying to set up the
VPN I need.

Here start the troubles.

I created two accounts in Active Directory to be used for RRAS
authentication, and then created two dial-up interfaces (with the same
names) on the two RRAS. I assigned IP addresses 192.168.49.1 and
192.168.49.2 to them (is this right? What addresses should I use for ths
kind of connection? Is it in any way relevant? I also tried with addresses
from both LANs anyway, same problems), and connected the interface from the
test RRAS (I can't connect from the main RRAS because there (still) isn't
any DC in the test site). Everything works fine.
For a while.
After a few minutes, the main RRAS stop working. It loses connectivity on
the public interface (X.Y.Z.66), can't ping the router (X.Y.Z.65) and
generally stops doing its work. Even disconnecting the VPN interface doesn't
help, the only way out of this is to restart the RRAS service.
I tried modifying the addresses, deleting and recreating the inerfaces,
doing anything I could guess of, but I'm stuck with this.
Can someone please help?

Thanks

Massimo

P.S.
I also have another active VPN with another remote LAN, and it works
perfectly! This one uses only two addresses (it's only one computer):
192.168.43.1 for the local interface, and 192.168.43.11 for the remote one.
I really don't know why this one works and the new one doesn't. Anyway, I
didn't talk about this before because it doesn't seem to be in any way
related to the problem I'm having.
 
Hi Massimo,

Can you check and send the route table in the main RRAS Server ?
Can you do "tracert -d X.Y.Z.65" to check what path it takes to reach the
router ?

Thanks,
Priya.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Hi Massimo,

Can you check and send the route table in the main RRAS Server ?
Can you do "tracert -d X.Y.Z.65" to check what path it takes to reach the
router ?

Sorry for the delay, but I was able to try again only today.
Ok, here's the route table on the main server before and after the VPN
connection was established (it's the Italian version of Windows Server 2003,
but I hope this is readable anyway):

---
IPv4 Tabella route
===========================================================================
Elenco interfacce
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x10002 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
0x10003 ...00 05 1c 0b 8a 9d ...... NIC Fast Ethernet PCI Realtek RTL8139
Family
0x10004 ...00 05 1c 0b 8a ec ...... NIC Fast Ethernet PCI Realtek RTL8139
Family #2
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Route attive:
Indirizzo rete Mask Gateway Interfaccia Metrica
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 X.Y.Z.65 X.Y.Z.66 20
127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 1
192.168.42.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.42.1 192.168.42.1 20
192.168.42.1 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 20
192.168.42.139 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.42.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.42.1 192.168.42.1 20
192.168.50.0 255.255.255.0 0.0.0.0 ffffffff 1
X.Y.Z.64 255.255.255.248 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 20
X.Y.Z.66 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 20
X.Y.Z.255 255.255.255.255 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 20
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.42.1 192.168.42.1 20
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 20
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.42.1 192.168.42.1 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 1
Gateway predef.: X.Y.Z.65
===========================================================================
Route permanenti:
Nessuna

IPv4 Tabella route
===========================================================================
Elenco interfacce
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x10002 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
0x10003 ...00 05 1c 0b 8a 9d ...... NIC Fast Ethernet PCI Realtek RTL8139
Family
0x10004 ...00 05 1c 0b 8a ec ...... NIC Fast Ethernet PCI Realtek RTL8139
Family #2
0xa0006 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Route attive:
Indirizzo rete Mask Gateway Interfaccia Metrica
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 X.Y.Z.65 X.Y.Z.66 20
127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 1
192.168.42.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.42.1 192.168.42.1 20
192.168.42.1 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 20
192.168.42.139 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.42.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.42.1 192.168.42.1 20
192.168.49.1 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.49.2 255.255.255.255 192.168.49.1 192.168.49.1 1
192.168.49.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.49.1 192.168.49.1 50
192.168.50.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.49.2 192.168.49.1 1
X.Y.Z.64 255.255.255.248 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 20
X.Y.Z.66 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 20
X.Y.Z.67 255.255.255.255 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 20
X.Y.Z.255 255.255.255.255 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 20
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.42.1 192.168.42.1 20
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.49.1 192.168.49.1 50
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 20
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.42.1 192.168.42.1 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 X.Y.Z.66 X.Y.Z.66 1
Gateway predef.: X.Y.Z.65
===========================================================================
Route permanenti:
Nessuna
---

The configuration is the same as described in the original post:
X.Y.Z.64/255.255.255.248 is our public IP range, 192.168.42.0/255.255.255.0
is the main LAN, 192.168.50.0/255.255.255.0 is the remote LAN, 192.168.49.1
and 192.168.49.2 are the addresses used by the point-to-point VPN connection
(BTW, are they OK? What would be the right addresses to use here?).
The problem also is the same: as soon as the VPN goes up, everything works
fine for 1-2 minutes, then the server loses connectivity on the public
interface, but in a strange way: the server (X.Y.Z.66) can talk to the other
server (X.Y.Z.67), but not to the main router (X.Y.Z.65), so any Internet
connection is gone. Anything else is working just fine (private LAN and VPN
included).
I really don't know what's happening here... I also tried changing the IP
addresses used in the VPN point-to-point connection, using ones from one of
the LANs or both of them, but I still had no luck.
Thanks for any help

Massimo

P.S.
Don't worry about the 192.168.42.139, it's the internal interface used by
the RRAS server for other incoming VPN connections (by remote users).

Massimo
 
Sorry for the delay, but I was able to try again only today.

Solved.
I mistakenly assigned the IP of the first RRAS server to the IP reservations
of the second one, so this caused the failure after a while the second
server was started :-(
Sorry...

Massimo
 
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