Network Bridge or ICS?

[Guest]

I am trying to allow my Virtual PC 2004 OS environemnts to use my VPN connection when connected to my corporate network.

I have a cable modem connected in to a DLINK network hub. The computer that hosts the Virtual PC 2004 environment is wired into this LAN and is running Windows XP Pro.

The Virtual PC newsgroup had some suggestions regarding how to connect to a LAN, but it doesn't seem to work with my VPN.

What I started doing was to install MS Loopback Adaptor and then created a loopback connection. I gave it an IP address subnet of 192.168.111. My DLINK router has its DHCP server subnet configured to 192.168.0.

First attempt was to create a Network Bridge between the VPN Connection and the Loopback Connection. This broke my ability to connect to the VPN network at work. The VPN client couldn't obtain an IP from the VPN server.

My second attempt was to use ICS on the VPN connection. When I select the Loopback Connection for the private network of the ICS and clickOK I get the following error.

"Internet Connection Sharing cannot be enabled.
A LAN connection is already configured with the IP address
that is required for automatic IP addressing."

I believe this must be due to ICS wnating to allocate addresses in the 192.168.0 range that my DLINK router is using.

Any recomendations on either changes to get the Network Bridge to work or to enable ICS?

Is there anyway to change what subnet IP range ICS uses? I would hate to change my DLINK router settings.

Is there something I can look at changing on my tunnel settings. Unfortuantely my IT support group doesn't support Virtual PC.

I have an Intel Pro 1000 NIC and Intel NetStructure VPN.
I appreciate any suggestions of what to look at to get this to work.

Jay

 

[Jetro]

If you have a real network adapter on the host, you don't need either
Loopback adapter or ICS or bridge. While in the Virtual PC, try
simultaneously to ping, tracert, and nslookup.

 

[Guest]

I managed to get the Loopback adaptor and ICS to work with a VPN connection.
In the hopes that I might save someone else the time I spent on this, here is what I
did.

Install the Microsoft Looback Adaptor. Look in Virtual PC 2004 help to determine how to do this.

View the properties on the VPN connection from My Network -> Properties.
Write down the Default Gateway, DNS Servers, and WINS Servers.

Configured the Loopback Connection to have an address in the private range of 192.168.x.y where x can be anything from 1-255. In the TCP/IP Protocla -> Properties, configure the Default Gateway, DNS Servers, and WINS Servers to be the same as the VPN Connection. Make the TCP/IP Static and the same as 192.168.x.y.

Enable Internet Connection Sharing on the VPN Connection. This is in the Advnace Tab of the connection properties. Select the Virtual Private Network to be the Loopback Connection you create earlier. Click OK.

Here is where I ran into trouble. My DLINK Router is providing DHCP Server in the 192.168.0.x range. I had to configure the address of my DLINK router to be something other than 192.168.0.x.

In the virtual PC OS setup a static IP in the 192.168.x range you chose for the loopback adaptor. In the TCP/IP settings for the Local Area Connection set the Default Gateway to the 192.168.x.y address of the Loopback adaptor. Set the DNS Server and WINS Server to be the same ones as the VPN Connection.

In my case I had to remove the Virtual PC OS from the domain, restart OS, change the name of the computer name, restart OS, and add the computer back in to the domain, and finally restart the OS again.

I was then able to login to my corporate doamin via the VPN Connection.

Hopefully someone else will gain from my pain.

Jay