VPN, ICS and routers!

[Wendie]

I posted this on networking but not really sure where it
belongs. Maybe someone here could help.
We have a peer to peer network with a file server that
has win2k professional on it. One of the people in the
office wants to connect to it remotely. We all connect
to the internet via an ADSL router shared connection over
a network hub. Our ISP has assigned us a static IP
address and I think I know how to set up an incoming
connection on the file server but wonder two things.
Someone mentioned in a post about creating a port for the
router on TCP 1723. How do I do that and do I need to?
Secondly, does it matter which VPN type I choose under
properties, ie: automatic, PPTP or IPSEC something.

I also have a question regarding the internet connection
sharing. I have been reading everything I can in the
knowledge base papers about VPNs and there is one that
says
"When you are using a shared Internet connection for a
local area network (LAN) on a computer running Microsoft
Windows 2000 Professional and then establish a virtual
private network (VPN) connection, the computers that are
using the shared connection can no longer connect to the
Internet."

Does anyone know if this will affect the ICS on a
router? Would upgrading to XP help stop this?

Thanks for any help.
Wendie

 

[Herb Martin]

I posted this on networking but not really sure where it
belongs. Maybe someone here could help.
We have a peer to peer network with a file server that
has win2k professional on it. One of the people in the
office wants to connect to it remotely. We all connect
to the internet via an ADSL router shared connection over
a network hub. Our ISP has assigned us a static IP
address and I think I know how to set up an incoming
connection on the file server but wonder two things.

You are saying that the ADSL router is providing your address
translation (from public externeral to private internal addresses)?

Someone mentioned in a post about creating a port for the
router on TCP 1723.

That would be PART of setting up a PPTP connection but you
would also need IP 47 (GRE) protocol if you needed 1723.

How do I do that and do I need to?

How depends on your router and I am doubtful you need/want/should
do this.

Secondly, does it matter which VPN type I choose under
properties, ie: automatic, PPTP or IPSEC something.

Yes, older clients like Win9x typically cannot do the L2TP/IPSec
and most people consider PPTP somewhat less secure -- older
clients can probably be upgraded and PPTP is reasonably secure
for the type of use you probably intend.

I also have a question regarding the internet connection
sharing. I have been reading everything I can in the
knowledge base papers about VPNs and there is one that
says

If you ADSL router is providing the connection sharing this is
going to change the SPECIFICS of setting this up. ICS is
a way to make a Win2000+ Pro box do this instead; NAT is
the feature that let's Server with RRAS do it. Many little routers
provide some of these features and may or may not call it by the
same name(s.)

"When you are using a shared Internet connection for a
local area network (LAN) on a computer running Microsoft
Windows 2000 Professional and then establish a virtual
private network (VPN) connection, the computers that are
using the shared connection can no longer connect to the
Internet."

Not precisely true but typically the effective case -- what happens
is that it prevents connections to the "other network" (Internet,
whatever) unless you are very careful in setting up routing and
name resolution.

Does anyone know if this will affect the ICS on a
router? Would upgrading to XP help stop this?

Probably not like you mean the question -- I strongly suspect you
are confusing "using Pro as a ICS router" with your current "ADSL
router".

You are almost certainly going to use only ONE OF these.

Thanks for any help.
Wendie

You will probably have more questions, or need to straighten out my
guesses, after you read the above...

 

[Wendie]

First of all , thank you Herb for replying! I appreciate
you trying to help. I figured out the ICS bit was ok,
but the router is an unknown entity. I have no idea how
these things work. I will tell you what I do know. I
tried to set this up today and failed. This is what we
have. The file server has Win2k and the "stuff" we need
to access. It connects in a peer to peer network thru an
ordinary hub and this is attached to an Alcatel
speedtouch 510 router. It uses the default gateway of
10.0.0.138 and the rest of the ofice pcs connect to the
internet thru it. The laptop that wants to access the
file server is running winXPpro. Our ISP provider
assigned us a static IP address.

Ok, so I set up an incoming connection on the file server
with the network wizard. Doesnt give you too many
options to fiddle with, then I set up a VPN connection on
the laptop. Tried to connect and got an error 800. I put
the ip address 10.0.0.138 in on the file server and
accessed the router config software - WHOA!!! OMG I have
no idea what half the stuff is or what to touch. For
fear of bringing down the whole network I didn't touch
anything. I retreated to the knowledge base to try to
find some more information. I am sure there are a
million and one things it could be, but any ideas where
to start first? Last time we did this on an ICS win2k
computer it set up first time with no problem. Just had
that shut off network problem. Ok, Herb, what do you
think? You're right, lots of questions!

regards
Wendie