bluetooth access point and VPN connections

[Ethan Shayne]

I am trying to connect a Windows 2000 laptop to the Internet via
bluetooth. I have an existing (wired) LAN with Internet connectivity,
and I have added a bluetooth access point to the LAN. Using this
setup, I can connect the laptop to the Internet just fine via
bluetooth.

However, for some reason I cannot connect the laptop to a VPN through
this setup. If I connect the same laptop to the same LAN via an
ethernet cable (bypassing the bluetooth access point), I can connect
to the same VPN with no problems.

I have tried both the Anycom AP-2002 access point as well as the
Belkin F8T030, both with the same result. Has anyone else gotten this
sort of thing to work?

Thanks,
Ethan

 

[serverguy]

Just guessing, but maybe it doesn't support the same level of encryption
being used on your VPN?
You might be better off using standard wireless (802g) for internet rather
than bluetooth which is proprietary technology.

 

[Ethan Shayne]

Should the bluetooth AP need to support any level of VPN encryption?
Shouldn't it just be passing the packets along as-is? (On the other
hand, this is the best explanation I've gotten so far.)

As for 802.11a/b/g - that would be a lot easier. However, the end-goal
here is to get this all working from a handheld that has only
bluetooth built-in (a Palm Tungsten T3). I am trying to get this all
to work from Windows after running into problems getting it to work
with the handheld, to eliminate the possibility that this is a
handheld-specific issue.

Thanks,
Ethan

 

[serverguy]

I think the AP might only support PPP and you will probably need PPTP
support. What VPN client are you running? Maybe try to find out if that
software supports Bluetooth or the 802.15 spec. You may need a newer VPN
client that handles Bluetooth. There are many forms of encryption, PAP,
Chap, MS-Chap v1, v2 ,etc... You will need to know what your VPN is using.
I did a quick google for VPN and Bluetooth and found other people asking
similar questions, so this sounds like a common problem. Maybe if you did
deep enough you will find a solution. Good luck!