Enabling broadcast packet forwarding for VPN clients

[David Wolfe]

I have a small private network that I would like to
configure to allow a limited number of VPN clients to
connect to. This would be for Internet gaming purposes.
Many multiplayer games that look for a game server do so
by sending out a subnet broadcast looking for servers.
Obviously, if a client is on the subnet via a VPN server,
the VPN server won't normally forward these broadcast
packets to the rest of the subnet.

Does anyone know of a way to tell Win2k RRAS to allow
broadcast packets to traverse the RRAS server interface?

Thanks!

 

[Joseph Davies [MSFT]]

David,

Sorry. This functionality is not supported by Windows 2000 Routing and
Remote Access. Is it possible to have your applications send a multicast
packet, rather than a broadcast? If so, Routing and Remote Access does
support multicast forwarding between VPN clients and the connected subnet.

Alternately, Windows Server 2003 supports the forwarding of NetBIOS over
TCP/IP (NetBT) broadcasts between VPN clients and attached subnets.
However, your application would have to support NetBT for this to be a
solution.

 

[Dwolfe]

Thanks for the info, Joseph. That pretty much what I had thought to be
the case but I was hoping someone knew of a magic registry bullet I
could fire to open up broadcast packet forwarding.

I don't think I'll ever find multicast/broadcast packet control within
the apps I am trying to get to work over a VPN connection. These apps
also don't ue NetBIOS for connectivity either.

Do you know of any other VPN application/appliance that can be
configured to forward broadcast packets?


Dwolfe