Help Please: Nokia IP55 and VPN Passthrough

[wbrownj]

Hi there to all,

I am both new to this forum and to DSL land so I'd like to ask for a bit of help.

I have a Nokia IP55 ADSL Modem/Router/Hub which works like a charm in every aspect but one.

My setup is very simple and just for home use. Basically it is:

One DHCP assigned IP address from my ISP
The router portion of the Nokia is therefore in NAT mode and the IP55 also supplies DHCP addresses to my LAN clients.

As I said, all works well except that I cannot VPN in to my office because VPN passthrough is not working.

Has anyone got this to work using a similar setup ?? How ??

I am not really a comms type person so please if you can help,
as much step by step guidance as possible is very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Jonathan

[cyberskye]

have you checked with nokia support or your product manual? Either should advise whether vpn pass thru is supported and hhow to configure it.

Skye

[wbrownj]

Many thanks for your response.

Nokia seem to have very little to say about it and the product in general and the manual set makes no mention of passthru. It also doesn't mention PPTP which might be worrying.

I bought this box from a third party company who have told me, when I went to them having discovered the problem, that you can't have NAT and VPN passthrough on the box at the same time. If I have a range of static IP addresses and the router was in 'traditional router' mode then VPN would work.

However, people at work (HP ex Compaq) tell me that VPN can co-reside with NAT if some ports are opened up.... hence my post to this forum.

I am not really a comms oriented person and as such was hoping someone who knows what they are doing had been down this path before and could say to me.... ah what you want to do is...

[cyberskye]

Which vpn protocol(s) do you use? You mentioned pptp which works on layer 2 - the work done by NAT should have no bearing at all. I have initiated pptp sessions to HQ from behind a NAT router while running in stealth mode - that means NO ports were opened.

If you are using any of the IPSec family then that is another issue.

You may want to consult your IT department for guidelines.

[cyberskye]

Dug a little more - some routers cannott do what i described in the post above - depends on the firmware ver and the vendor.

[wbrownj]

Hi there again Cyberskye,

You've really been a pal looking into this for me, but I have been hearing a lot about the IP55 not being able to do this so I have purchased another model of ADSL modem/router/switch (the new Netgear offering) that states that it can do what I require.

The IP55 will be sold

Thanks again

Jonathan