Microsoft Networking Gurus…here’s the situation…

I’m playing around with Microsoft XP Professional’s VPN abilities and trying to setup a VPN (PPTP) connection from my parent’s place to my own home.

So, I’ve setup the XP Pro server to accept incoming calls via VPN (PPTP). I’ve also set VPN Passthrough on port 1723 on my Netgear WGT624 Router. So everything seems to be working. I can seemingly connect to the VPN. However, I cannot see any of the internal network.

Looking at my VPN (WAN PPP/SLIP) connection, I have a valid IP address in range. The remote network uses the IP range 192.168.0.xxx with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. I’m getting 192.168.0.103 as an address and I also get the correct DNS servers. However, the subnet mask is set to 255.255.255.255 and I don’t see anywhere to change this. Also, oddly enough, the gateway is also set to the VPN server (192.168.0.103) which may or may not be correct. I’m thinking that it should get the internal network’s gateway instead (at 192.168.0.1).

Any ideas?

On the server side get a VPN router its a peice of cake and it mannaged all internet to the router… otherwise read up on stuff VPN can be kinda tricky

If you wanna change the subnet mask it should be in
Network connections
Right click the device in question
Properties
Internet Protocol Properties and you can set a static address there along with subnet

[quote author=“IcHiRoRaBbIt”]On the server side get a VPN router its a peice of cake and it mannaged all internet to the router… otherwise read up on stuff VPN can be kinda tricky

Err….thanks. I know a hardware VPN router would be easier but that’s a $150-200 expense I’d rather not have to spend (it cuts into other gadget funds). Technically, the software solution should work and in pure geek spirit, I want to get this to work since it should be possible.

And trust me, I’ve been Googling for almost a day now researching this. Microsoft’s knowledge base hasn’t been entirely helpful either…

[quote author=“IcHiRoRaBbIt”]If you wanna change the subnet mask it should be in
Network connections
Right click the device in question
Properties
Internet Protocol Properties and you can set a static address there along with subnet

Umm…have you tried this on a VPN dial-up connection? There is no place to enter the subnet. I know it exists for regular IP type connections.

Actually, this whole idea was brought on by the fact that Cox High Speed Internet (in my parent’s area) does not support outgoing SMTP on port 25. So, I basically can’t send any e-mails out which is extremely annoying. I could use one of their accounts and change my SMTP settings but I don’t want to have to do this every time I come and visit them. They claim it’s to block spam relaying. That hasn’t stopped my mom’s Cox e-mail account from receiving hundreds of spam e-mails even though she’s never ever used the e-mail account.

So, with my current VPN connection, it seems that I can send e-mails through my own network at home (which uses Comcast) and bypass Cox’s evil port blocking. Of course, the mystery is why I can’t see any of my home network computers through the VPN (as I technically should be able to do).

Maybe a simpler solution would be to set up IIS on the XP Pro box, set up the SMTP service to relay, but disable anonymous access and change the port to a random high port and set that as a pass-through on the router. But that’s not quite so cool.

[quote author=“Drachen”]Maybe a simpler solution would be to set up IIS on the XP Pro box, set up the SMTP service to relay, but disable anonymous access and change the port to a random high port and set that as a pass-through on the router. But that’s not quite so cool.

That’s an idea. The funny thing is that I used to defeat Cox’s block of port 25 by changing the smtp port to 8025 and that worked until recently. I think they started blocking that port now. At any rate, my “trick” seems to work now so I’m happy….just curious about the internal network issue.

have you tried remote desktop to your xp place? and then send use it like your home computer/ it sometime might be alittle slow tho.

port used by mstsc is 3389.

[quote author=“invisiblefly”]have you tried remote desktop to your xp place? and then send use it like your home computer/ it sometime might be alittle slow tho.

port used by mstsc is 3389.

Yes, I know all about Remote Desktop and use it all the time. However, my main mail files are with me on my laptop and I want to send via my laptop since it records everything i do. I also sometimes want to transfer files from some of my servers to my laptop. Remote Desktop doesn’t allow you to do that. VPN does. I could setup FTP but VPN is a more elegant solution for me. I’ll figure it out at some point…at least I can send my mail out now from my parent’s place without having to change any of my mail settings.  :wink:

i was be able to access my others computer in the same local area network with VPN server.
my setup is silimar to yours
i’m running win2k3 instead of xp

i specify my own ipaddress
*the one in the picture is not what i’m mention here*
let say my DHCP server is 192.168.0.1
my VPN server is 192.168.0.2
my othercomputer is 192.168.0.3 and so on

then i put in the specify ip address for the inoming connection as

192.168.0.15 << start with 15 for what reason? i dont know.. 

then i connect to my IP using my TR laptop from other place (different internect connection)
i’m be able to access file in 192.168.0.3
but the thing is using \\computername doesn’t work for me
i had to use \\192.168.0.3\sharefolder\

Of course it works…you’re on the same LAN! Now go to a Starbucks and see if it still works. 

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]Of course it works…you’re on the same LAN! Now go to a Starbucks and see if it still works. 

no both was not on the same lan
i use my n e i g h b o r ‘s wifi to tried it.