Multiple VPN Connections on ADSL

[chilli3g]

I have searched the forum, but couldn't find any similar posts, so I hope this hasn't been asked before.

I'm trying to get two PC's in my office to connect through my Mega 100 router on ADSL to a single customer VPN server. We can connect the one PC to the VPN no problem, but can not connect the second PC, eventhough we are using a different VPN account. From the little reading that I have done, it seems like this problem is caused by the router. Does anyone know how to configure the router to get around this problem?

I know the second PC settings are correct, because I can connect to the VPN using both the VPN accounts, when the other PC is disconnected.

Both PC's are running XP SP2, ISP - Telkom ADSL, Mega 100WR router - Firmware 99.70.1, VPN - MS Server 2003

 

[JayM]

Lots of routers only support a single VPN connection - the feature is called "VPN passthrough". What type of VPN is being used?

If you wanted, you could connect the VPN from one PC, and enable sharing on the connection. Then add routes to the remote network via the PC with the connected VPN session. You may run into MTU size issues though.

 

[cow]

I've always been a big fan of Netgear routers, but none of the 4 different models I've worked with supports more than 1 outgoing VPN connection (interestingly enough, incoming is not a problem).

I've been playing around with OpenVPN (http://www.openvpn.org) quite a bit, and I must say I'm really impressed. It doesn't conform to standard VPN protocols (using GRE packets etc.), and for exactly that reason it works perfectly on the Netgears.

Nice thing about OpenVPN is that you can install it as a service, and it will try and make - and then maintain - the vpn connection with no user intervention.

 

[chilli3g]

Thanks JayM, I have done some further testing and we can connect to two unrelated VPN servers concurrently, from two different PC's, but just not concurrently to the same VPN server. I believe its Windows VPN.

I'm not keen on setting up connection sharing, because then I have to set up windows networking and ICS, besides everything else is working fine at moment, so I'm hesitant to change things.

Instead, do you know of any way to enable the Mega 100WR to allow concurrent VPN connections to the same VPN server?

 

[JayM]

Thanks JayM, I have done some further testing and we can connect to two unrelated VPN servers concurrently, from two different PC's, but just not concurrently to the same VPN server. I believe its Windows VPN.

I'm not keen on setting up connection sharing, because then I have to set up windows networking and ICS, besides everything else is working fine at moment, so I'm hesitant to change things.

Instead, do you know of any way to enable the Mega 100WR to allow concurrent VPN connections to the same VPN server?

Have you tried binding a secondary IP address to the VPN server, to fool your router into thinking it's connecting to a 2nd server? This is a long shot - last time I tried with Windows RRAS connections didn't work to the 2nd IP. Worth a shot though.

I'm not familiar with the 100WR unfortunately.

The other option, as suggested, is OpenVPN - It's free and works well.

 

[cow]

Interesting about that fact that it doesn't allow 2 connections to the same server, but will to different servers...

I've got a sneaky feeling that adding a 2nd IP won't work unless it's another public routable address...

 

[JayM]

Interesting about that fact that it doesn't allow 2 connections to the same server, but will to different servers...

I've got a sneaky feeling that adding a 2nd IP won't work unless it's another public routable address...

Yes, it would definitely need to be a public routable address.

 

[chilli3g]

Been out of action for most of the day due to a power failure in our area. Thanks for all the responses guys! Much appreciated!

Unfortunately OpenVPN is not an option as it's a customer server. If it were my own server though, I would have gone this route.

I guess I'm left with 4 options. One, check if the customer has another public IP address available that they would be willing to add to the server, so that it would appear to the router that we are connecting to two different VPN servers. Two, see if the customer has a second separate VPN server. Three, enable ICS and share the VPN connection. Four, live with being connected one at a time!

Thanks all!

 

[Paul_S]

How about running the VPNs through encrypted SSH tunnels?
A bit of a hack and I'm sure the performance won't be as good but it may work well enough.

 

[WickedWeasel]

You can try use the Juniper devices, they are cheap and work on both Dynamic and Fixed IP Addresses

 

[sheldonc]

Hi got the same problem at a client of mine
was there a solution other than getting a router that supports mulitple VPN's ?

 

[chinese eyes]

@ chilli3g - are you connecting to the internet from each PC individually, or does your router connect for you? usually with vpns you are assigned an 'local' ip from the server. if the router is the one getting the ip, or maybe if the server sees the same public ip from you, then it would have no way of telling the PCs apart, that way not allowing the 2nd PC to connect. maybe try your router in bridge mode. the PCs would then each get there own public ip from their pppoe dialup connections, hopefully allowing the server to see them as 2 seperate connections.

might be a load of ****e, might not. worth a try...