I am not entirely new to linux, however, I have been having a problem regarding my pptp vpn. I know many suggest other vpn solutions but I wanted a simple one with user authentication not hardware certificate based like IPSec....plus I want to maintain compatability with older win machines w/o having to worry about third party software. My problem is actually two.

1) When I log on, it is succesful, howerver the netmask assigned is 255.255.255.255.... the netmask for my lan is 255.255.255.0 all of the configuration files have my lan netmask listed appropriatley -- that is it is listed in ppp config file and pptpd config

2) I set up a samba server on the same machine to allow for network neighborhood/workgroup simple browsing, as well as server shares to the machines on the local network...when I logon to the vpn, I sometimes get the lan machines to show up. I say sometimes because depending on the username I validate with it will or will not show then in the network list. Finally when I attempt to access a vpn connection computer, or a comp on the lan from a vpn connection I get an error something like "Device not found on network"

My lan consists of 3 machines and a router in the following diagram

router/firewall
192.168.0.1
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| | |
linux server WINXP Home WINXP Home
debian ppc 192.168.0.102 192.168.0.103
no firewall
no masquerading
192.168.0.100

my netmask 255.255.255.0
net addresses 192.168.0.x

I can't figure out why this stuff isn't working I wondered if it has anything to do with the localip and remoteip settings...although I am using static IP assignment with chap-secrets. is there something I have to do that I haven't I'm not running ipchains since the router is masquerading/NAT for the network.

I would greatly appreciate any advice suggestions etc any of you may have

Thanks Alex

Please check the proxyarp is enabled or not ?. It may be a netbios issue.

Siddiqu.T

proxyarp is set in the ppp options file, as well as the pptpd.options file I also have entries in the lmhosts and hosts files with the remote ip addresses assigned to each username. could it be a ip negotiation issue with pppd and the ppp client?

I know this is kinda old but theres a new documentation site by the developers of poptop

http://poptop.sourceforge.net/

it appears to have quite a lot of information about problems like the one I have been haveing.

-Alex

I had the same problem as #1 and solved it by enabling IP4 Forwarding - set /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward to 1

Thanks for the suggestion but I have now since moved to OpenVPN, it doesn't allow me to access from any windows computer because I need the software but I now have a laptop so I just need Internet access now.