Cannot connect to VPN over INTERnet

Hello, I'm trying to get VPN between several of my friends, and me being the server on Windows 2000 Server.

But when anyone is trying to connect to me, they simply get "Verifying user name and password" message and then "Request Timed Out" after some time. It seems like my server doesn't get or respond to that request.

I'm behind a LinkSys router, but I have both IPSec Pass Through and PPTP Pass Through Enabled, plus I'm on a DMZ. So the router shouldn't be causing problems.

When I was messing with all this, I tried to connect to my own computer. Connecting to localhost (127.0.0.1) and local ip (192.168.*) was successful, but connecting to public ip (24.*) was not as successful as it also showed me "Verifying user name and password" message after which said "Request Timer out ".

Connecting to local ip (192.168.*) from my other home machine was also success, but not the public one.

What could be the problem here? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

What happens when a PC either inside or outside your home LAN tries to ping the 24.x.x.x address?

If that works, how about the name returned when you do a ping -a 24.x.x.x?

 

Thanks for the fast response,

Ping works, and nslookup returns my domain name when i try 24.x.x.x

My Internet is perfect, I can play games, access whatever I want, I have ftp and web servers, but this for some reason doesn't work.

I was thinking the problem could be the authentication that computers use different methods, but we seemed to do the right thing.

Also we tried another Windows 2000 Server to be VPN server, but the same problem. This another machine is directly connected to the internet though. The user names and passwords seem to be fine, but then again it doesn't even get to that....

I run a firewall, but even with it shut down same problem occurs. Maybe my ISP (Rogers High Speed) doesn't allow PPTP packets pass through or something like that because everything else seems to be what it has to be. I'll call the ISP soon and tell you what I get.

If there is anything else I'm forgetting please advise me
Thanks in advance

 

Ok, I called Rogers Tech. Support and all I could get out of them is that they don't block anything. Guess something is in the configurations then

 

OK. I was hoping the problem was something simple but looks like not.

What authentication is the server requiring and can/do all the clients try to use it? PAP is horrible/wide open/non-secure but might be worth trying at first until you get the thing going.
PAP - Password Authentication Protocol
CHAP - Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol
MS-CHAP - MicroSoft's CHAP
MS-CHAPv2 - MicroSoft's CHAP version 2
EAP - Extensible Authentication Protocol


To try to narrow things down, let me point you to a few "how to" articles. Check and make sure you haven't missed something in setting up your VPN.

Configure a W2K VPN Server

A general information article designed to be used in the pre-planning phase but has some useful information and mentions some possible pitfalls.

Post back after you have read thru these.

 

I've read the links you posted and some others, but still haven't found a solution.

I tried to remove the router and connect directly to the cable modem, but the NIC that works with the ISP (because of its MAC) is only on XP machine and i don't wanna move it. So i configured XP to be VPN server, and it did have some improvement, though i couldn't connect to its local address or localhost, the same error was trying to connect to 24.x.x.x. That means that the connection did go through, i didn't have time to figure out why it didn't work, and i had to put the router back. I will try to make it work, hopefully will find something "fixable ".

The error on XP was that the authentication methods were not the same with server and client, but as i said i didn't have enough time to get into that, and didn't go into fixing, but i will soon.

This all is pushing me to believe that router is still the one that causes the problems

Thanks for your help, and I'll try to post back with results

 

This might be worth a look:

Microsoft security fix blocked VPN connections