Robert Howells wrote:
Preamble
My daughter is home from San Diego for the week and we cannot get her
PC laptop to work through a VPN to the Desktop on her PC at work.
Windows XP, or some older version? What VPN software? What VPN
technology does her company use (Citrix ICA, Microsoft RDP, IPSec, PPTP,
"SSL VPN", etc)? I've made a guess from what's below, but confirmation
would be nice.
Procedure to get to remote Desktop :
Click on VPN connect icon on Laptop
it asks for a Password ....
Password is entered and the Laptop should access the San Diego site.
A " connected " indication shows OK
CLICK On Laptop Remote DesKtop CONNECTION ICON
From this I'm assuming you're using Microsoft Remote Desktop with the
RDP protocol. Confirmation/correction would be nice.
which should send data into the server at SD and cause the daughter's PC
Desktop screen to appear
with a Login screen
We get nothing ... just a blank screen ... !
Some VPN technologies require the "server" to be able to connect back to
the client, which won't work through a NAT router (like most DSL and
cable routers) without special settings. Microsoft Remote Desktop
Protocol doesn't seem to be one of them, though... so right now it's
hard to say what's wrong.
Laptop is OK, as it will access the remote desktop from my next door
neighbour port on 4 port Router/modem ,
also from a PC shop ethernet
and from a Macdonalds wireless connection.
OK, so it's working through NAT elsewhere, and the server is also
working fine. Your comment below makes sense to me, making this all the
stranger.
So problem should be due to ISP
(ISP has fobbed us off to their specialist staff who are available
Wednesday !)
OR
settings in my ADSL modem.
If ArachNet offers a web-based control panel for your service, try
visiting it and looking for "blocked ports". If there are any, turn them
off, and see if that helps. If turning them off does not help, then I
strongly suggest turning them back on, since port-blocking by the ISP
will help make it harder for certain types of attack over the Internet
to succeed.
I personally wouldn't expect this to do anything, but it's the only way
I can think of that your ISP could be affecting the connection.
QUESTION : Does anybody know if we need special settings in the
ADSL modem to run the VPN
and remote Desktop.
Some quick searches suggest that it should not usually be necessary.
However, if your DSL router has a firewall built-in, you might want to
see if it has any settings for "VPN", "Microsoft Remote Desktop," "port
3389" or "RDP". Also look for any logs the router may keep, and see if
there's anything useful in them.
Another thing you can try is, on the Windows laptop, run:
Start->run
type "cmd" and hit enter
In the resulting window, type "telnet name-of-vpn-server 3389" .
and see what happens. If you post the resulting messages here, it might
be informative. To quit once it finishes, try just closing the window.
--
Craig Ringer
