PPPoE with 2003 Nightmares

[ChrisMac]

Greetings All,

I have a puzzle for you... I have a network of WinXP clients with a
2003 Server Box that I want to use to connect the network to my ADSL
line that uses PPPoE to connect. I tried to do it with the Win2003
wizards for connecting to the internet, but I always ended up with
authentication failures. I try the same connection with my XP laptop,
worked like a charm.

Called the ISP. They said I needed to use a third party PPPoE client
that they provide...Enternet 300. Problem #2- This was not
compatible with Win2003 server (or so all of my installation problems
suggested to me.)

Enternet 500 does not seem to work. WinPoet does not seem to work.

I tried RASPPPoe and it works!!! BUT, I have one big problem. When
setting up Routing for my network with ROuting and Remote Access, The
server understands two kinds of connections...first the PPPOE that it
sets up (the same one that always gives me authentication failures) or
a dial up connection that needs a physical modem and a physical phone
number. RASPPPoE creates a dial up connection, but the RRAS does not
give me an option to use that for my routes.

OK, here is the question: Is there any solution that would either
allow me to use the native Win2003 Server PPPoE client, or that would
allow Routing and Remote Access to use the pre-set dialup account that
RASPPPoe created? Or is there another solution that I need to
consider?

THanks tons!

 

[Robert Schlabbach]

I tried RASPPPoe and it works!!!

Great!

BUT, I have one big problem. When
setting up Routing for my network with ROuting and Remote Access, The
server understands two kinds of connections...first the PPPOE that it
sets up (the same one that always gives me authentication failures) or
a dial up connection that needs a physical modem and a physical phone
number.

In the list of "physical modems", your network adapter should be listed -
that is actually RASPPPOE! You can leave the phone number field blank.

Regards,«

 

[ChrisMac]

Thanks for the input...It sure looks like it should work...but....

I tried to get that to work...it still did not want to authenticate,
so I decided to try to strip the thing down and start over....I had
tried Enternet, WinPoet (several versions of each) and RASPPPOE. I
figured I might just have too much junk sitting around in the folder.

Tried to uninstall everything (3rd party) and reinstall RASPPPOE. Now
I can't even get that to work! Even a simple dial out won't
authenticate any more!

A couple of questions:

1. What is the issue with the authentication anyway?
2. How can I easily restore the original networking files to the
server so I can get a clean start?
3. Any other thoughts?

 

[Robert Schlabbach]

1. What is the issue with the authentication anyway?

That's for you to find out Possible causes:

1. You mistyped the username and/or password
2. Your ISP is restricting the number of simultaneous connections under
this user/pass and you are already connected with that number of machines
3. Your ISP is unreliable and often has outages

You could try enabling RAS logging and looking through the trace files for
the cause:

1. Open a Command Prompt and type "netsh ras set tracing * enabled"
2. Make a connection attempt
3. Type "netsh ras set tracing * disabled" in the Command Prompt
4. Look at the files in \WINDOWS\tracing

Regards,«

 

[Bill Grant]

When Robert tells you how RASPPPOE works, listen carefully. He wrote it!

 

[ChrisMac]

Thanks Robert and Bill for the advice....

I will tell you where I have reached and you can give me any advice
you feel appropriate.

On the authentication issue, I had tried everything you suggested
before I read your post. When you type the same username/password
over and over again, and get one result with RASPPPoE and another
result with Windows PPPoE every time, you begin to suspect a problem
in the actual windows implementation.

As I poured over the tracing files, I could not discern anything
helpful. Yes, I am getting disconnected with an authentication error
every time I try to connect using the Windows PPPoE implementation.
If you could suggest a specific file in the tracing folder and
something to look for, it would help me a bit.

And the other thing...even though I have installed RASPPPoE and set up
the RRAS conection as per your instructions (trying to use RASPPPoE
over the ethernet adapter instead of a physical modem), I am not
getting RRAS to authenticate, though I can flip over to dialup
connections and connect with the RASPPPoE Dial up connection.

I have made sure about the password more times than I can count and
know it is not an outage issue, so there must be something in the
ISP's setup that does not like the Windows implementation of PPPoE.
(Of course the tech support guy knew nothing except that it is the
policy of the ISP that everyone needs to use a third party dialer) I
wonder if there is a way to force RRAS to use the correct driver...

Any suggestions?

Thanks TONS

 

[Olaf Selke]

Any suggestions?

yep install the famous packet sniffer Ethereal and WinPcap from
http://ethereal.com/ respectively http://winpcap.mirror.ethereal.com/,
deinstall Enternet 300, if not already installed, install RASPPPOE,
start Ethereal and than launch your pppoe session again. With some basic
unterstanding of pppoe, ppp, and lcp protocol this certainly will help
to figure out what's going wrong there.

cheers, Olaf

 

[Bill Grant]

For a different person's viewpoint on how to use RASPPPoE with Windows
and RRAS, see the following site

www.ozcableguy.com