VPN connectivity issue

canooten · 05-18-2005, 12:33 PM

My company uses a VPN to allow outside access to our inhouse systems.
Our main software here runs on a Unix server, so an emulation program has to be used on Windows systems. We use Tiny Term for this.

We have one employee who lives out of state and does all of her work through this VPN connection. She has recently moved and went from a Bellsouth DSL connection to a Sprint DSL connection and she's now having problems connecting with the emulator. There is no problem connecting to the VPN, but the emulator will not connect to the inhouse server.
This sounds like a routing problem on her end. Most likely NAT settings on her modem/router that are not allowing the connection to complete, but that seems strange since the VPN has no trouble connecting. It seems that the emulator connection would use the same ports as the VPN correct?

I may not be explaining this the best way, but bear with me. What could cause the emulator connection to time out like this? Am I right in thinking its a router configuration issue?

Inaris · 05-18-2005, 01:36 PM

have you ever consider using a Citrix solution for running the emulator? This is, in my mind, the answer to your problems...
anyway, if she is getting a connection in the VPN, then running the program, if it's timing out, it's a problem on your end. The connection through the VPN makes her machine active on your network, so it's getting there. The program could have an issue with several things, but I think it's problably something to do with the amount of time it's taking for the application to get a response. See if you can configure the interface for running a longer timeout session and see what that does.

Good luck

canooten · 05-18-2005, 01:39 PM

My first thought was that the problem was here, but the connection is flawless when I try it from home. Same VPN connection, same emulator, same settings (all default but the connection IP and the login info).

Inaris · 05-18-2005, 01:46 PM

right, but are you using the same provider and in the same area as she?

office politics · 05-18-2005, 02:25 PM

try pinging the server over the vpn. if if fails, troubleshoot the vpn connection. Otherwise, troubleshoot the client.

canooten · 05-18-2005, 04:51 PM

No, I'm not using the same provider and we're in different states. I realize that can make a difference in some ways, but a problem here would keep all users from connecting, not just the one from out of state. Correct?

Is there a "different" way to ping over the vpn?

evelmunkey · 05-18-2005, 05:02 PM

she changed somehting. You need to have her send you the computer configure and send back. Thats what I did when we had out of state connections

canooten · 05-18-2005, 05:05 PM

That's the thing that gets me. Her computer crashed a few weeks ago so I had her ship it to me and I reformatted/reloaded the machine. I set up the VPN connection and the emulation software. The emulator worked great in house (so it should also work over the VPN).
She gets it back and the VPN connects with no problem, but the emulator times out while searching for the connection. That's what leads me to believe it's somehow her router.

I had her hook up with the gotomypc trial.....I'm going to go over her configuration tomorrow when I have some free time. Maybe I'll come across something.

evelmunkey · 05-19-2005, 03:58 PM

do you know what model router she has?

canooten · 05-19-2005, 04:07 PM

It's a Zyxel 4xx something.

It did wind up being a router problem. I finally got some detailed info on her setup and winds up her modem was set to bridge and they had a Linksys wireless router handling the login and routing. Got her to take the Linksys out of the loop and reset the modem to factory settings and it's working now.

Now I need to figure out what about the Linksys was causing the problems so their wireless connection can be added back.

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