MN-700 & VPN: Bad news, good news

I have bad news and I have good news with respect to the
MN-700 base station handling VPN.

The bad news: The MN-700 is not reliably passing my VPN.
With DMZ enabled (I'm also running a software firewall),
my VPN connection is sporatic. And the same when I try
port forwarding: sometimes yes, but mostly no.

Microsoft tech support was no help, either, as they say
they don't support VPN. What's up with that? Wouldn't you
think they'd make sure their product was going to satisfy
the increasing number of VPN users out there? Guess not.

A peer of mine said he'd heard that Linksys routers worked
better. I don't know but I'm going to return the MN-700
and try something else.

The good news: I lied about the good news.

what is the SR# they gave you when they stated no VPN support? What
VPN client are you using?

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 19:43:08 -0800, "Rich"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I have bad news and I have good news with respect to the
>MN-700 base station handling VPN.
>
>The bad news: The MN-700 is not reliably passing my VPN.
>With DMZ enabled (I'm also running a software firewall),
>my VPN connection is sporatic. And the same when I try
>port forwarding: sometimes yes, but mostly no.
>
>Microsoft tech support was no help, either, as they say
>they don't support VPN. What's up with that? Wouldn't you
>think they'd make sure their product was going to satisfy
>the increasing number of VPN users out there? Guess not.
>
>A peer of mine said he'd heard that Linksys routers worked
>better. I don't know but I'm going to return the MN-700
>and try something else.
>
>The good news: I lied about the good news.

--
Barb Bowman
Expert Zone Columnist
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
MS-MVP (Windows)

I was finally able to get VPN working on my MN-700.

The basic configuration is:

Cable Modem --> LinkSys Wired Router --> MN-700

where the MN-700 is configured as an Access Point (which causes some of its
internal functions, such as DHCP and firewall, to become disabled). The
LinkSys acts as the DHCP server and hardware firewall, and I have software
firewalls installed on the wireless devices for good measure.

All devices on the network have IP Addresses with the first three octets of
192.168.1, since Barb had recommended trying this in an earlier message.

The security is 128-bit WEP (mixed WiFi b/g), to support one workstation
that still has a legacy 802.11b wireless adapter; data quality is Excellent
on all three floors of the house.

As a result of making this change, I now have three wireless devices and one
wired device successfully using the Cisco VPN Client on my network, and I am
pretty happy. Plus, buying the wired router is slightly less expensive than
buying a new wireless router.



"Rich" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:626001c3e61a$02eef9e0$(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have bad news and I have good news with respect to the
> MN-700 base station handling VPN.
>
> The bad news: The MN-700 is not reliably passing my VPN.
> With DMZ enabled (I'm also running a software firewall),
> my VPN connection is sporatic. And the same when I try
> port forwarding: sometimes yes, but mostly no.
>
> Microsoft tech support was no help, either, as they say
> they don't support VPN. What's up with that? Wouldn't you
> think they'd make sure their product was going to satisfy
> the increasing number of VPN users out there? Guess not.
>
> A peer of mine said he'd heard that Linksys routers worked
> better. I don't know but I'm going to return the MN-700
> and try something else.
>
> The good news: I lied about the good news.
>