VPN connection on vista

[HybridSquirrel]

So i'm finding it difficult on my schools public Wifi to connect to a VPN at home...it seems from some areas on campus i am able to connect and from others i am not...only reason for me connecting is that the school blocks certain things on the internet i use for research, and most importantly they block video games o.0

i dont have a problem connecting when im at a friends house so i know it works, main question is does windows vista automatically firewlal your computer when you are on a public connection? and if so is ther a way around that?

 

[QuixoticOne]

Yeah Vista does that. When you go to the control panel networks & settings area and look at a given network you can designate it public vs private etc. and there are other menus where you can control how the firewall applies to a given network.

Since it is a VPN, though, and you're presumably initiating the connection from your own local PC, I am a little doubtful that it is a firewall problem since usually locally initiated traffic is permitted to connect to remote sites without too much of a problem.

Check the protocol the VPN uses, ideally it will be UDP packets with the capability of NAT transversal, and check the port number it runs over, sometimes that port might be blocked for certain networks having nothing to do with your own firewall.

If you configure it to run over TCP port 8080 or TCP port 80 then it should work from just about anywhere though TCP isn't the best for VPN use.

 

[HybridSquirrel]

Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Yeah Vista does that. When you go to the control panel networks & settings area and look at a given network you can designate it public vs private etc. and there are other menus where you can control how the firewall applies to a given network.

Since it is a VPN, though, and you're presumably initiating the connection from your own local PC, I am a little doubtful that it is a firewall problem since usually locally initiated traffic is permitted to connect to remote sites without too much of a problem.

Check the protocol the VPN uses, ideally it will be UDP packets with the capability of NAT transversal, and check the port number it runs over, sometimes that port might be blocked for certain networks having nothing to do with your own firewall.

If you configure it to run over TCP port 8080 or TCP port 80 then it should work from just about anywhere though TCP isn't the best for VPN use.

would i have to configure those ports from the server at home? or form the computer im connecting through? i did have to open ports on my router at home but i cant recall which ones i opened since i did it so long ago...the connection on this computer says it uses TCP v6 and TCP v4....i tried to disable one at a time but nothing.


EDIT: seems i can get it to go further then before...now its stuck on verifying user name and password....and those are both right.

 

[JDMnAR1]

My first inclination, given that you state you can successfully VPN from some areas and not others, is that perhaps the wireless APs are configured differently in different areas. Since you presumably aren't making changes to the client-side connection based upon the area you are in, that would make me think that it isn't an issue with your Vista installation.

 

[HybridSquirrel]

Originally posted by: JDMnAR1
My first inclination, given that you state you can successfully VPN from some areas and not others, is that perhaps the wireless APs are configured differently in different areas. Since you presumably aren't making changes to the client-side connection based upon the area you are in, that would make me think that it isn't an issue with your Vista installation.

Ive just been using the Campus Wifi, and for example here in my history class i can get it to verify user/pass but in ethics and logic i dont even get it to do that...

i opened up ports 8080 and 80 on the firewall although i have it disabled right now...

 

[QuixoticOne]

Yes if you change the ports or protocol (UDP / TCP) the VPN runs on you'd have to make corresponding changes at the server/remote side as well as on your local and remote firewalls / port forwarding routers etc.

There are public protocol / port scanner tools that can help identify what protocols and ports are able to pass through a given firewall / network. These can be helpful in determining what is an effective setting to use for a VPN or other communicating program to best traverse the networks it has to.

You have to be a little careful using port scanners to look for open ports / protocols, though, since some networks / firewalls will detect that type of scanning as a problem and may even lock you out of things that you'd NORMALLY have had access to if it wasn't for the scanner's action creating a lock down.

NMAP is one good free general purpose port scanner:
http://nmap.org/
http://nmap-online.com/

http://scan.sygate.com/quickscan.html
http://www.auditmypc.com/firewall-test.asp
http://www.speedguide.net/networktools.php

You're doing something a little more complicated since you just need to find one or a small few reliably open ports / protocols that will work in various circumstances / locations, and you need the ports / protocols to be open both at your remote location as well as through the ISP / networks leading to your server side location. In general it is best to pick a hand full of commonly used protocols / ports and try to use those one at a time selectively to see which one(s) work from various locations instead of doing bulk scans of tons of ports / protocols all at once.

You mentioned not being able to get to a login screen from one spot... I assume you mean the VPN login for your own remote server. In general you MUST authenticate LOCALLY to the wireless network in your area somehow before it'll pass ANY traffic for your PC to / from the internet. Be sure you have authenticated to the WLAN you're on and have something successful like basic web access to the internet through that WLAN before you even think of testing the VPN function or looking for open ports for the VPN.

Again a lot of locations will be going through a NAT, possibly on both sides of your VPN link, so you'd need a VPN protocol with NAT traversal on one or both ends. Have you tried hamachi?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi

If you have a test machine that is secure that you could leave 100% open to the internet on all ports / protocols and even which can run a given test software to respond to your remote access attempts on all those ports/protocols (on your remote "home" end) then that'd make it very much easier to test what settings can be used since you'd only have to debug / configure ONE end of the connection for a test.

 

[HybridSquirrel]

as i was making that post i was trying to connect to the vpn tweaking some stuff so i did have an internet connection. also i tried it when i got home (on my neighbors wireless) and was able to connect...

if i use that port scanner at school and set my firewall to allow acces on those ports you think that would work?


sry for the noobness ive jst never run into probblems like this before.