Routerv VPN RVS4000--Network drive and Remote Desktop Issue

[metroidfox]

Hi,

We recently bought a Cisco Small Business VPN Router RVS4000 to be able to remotely access a file server in our network. We had no trouble installing and configuring the router nor did we with the QuickVPN client, the connection was immediate. But we got a problem as soon as we tried to map our network drives. We end with an error message saying our file server is unreachable, event though we can successfuly ping it and access it through the web.

So we investigated that problem and found that we are not assigned an IP address from the remote network (A full network scan didn't found any new computer on the network and haven't found any DHCP adress release by the router for our remote computer.). We haven't found any new connection in network connections like we usually find with other vpn vlients. And our remote computer doesn't even have a route to the distant network (Found by typing "route print" in cmd.exe). So we are thinking that we can't nap those drives because our computer can't reach the file server or the file server cannot respond since it doesn't have an ip address to answer to.

So our question is: Is there any way to create a connection to get an IP address from the remote network or to be able to map network drives?

Thanks in advance.

[Alejandro Gallego]

You should be able to map a drive from your network once you are connected via QVPN with no problem. One thing to remember is that QVPN will not assign an IP from your remote network, but it will create a router from your local network to your remote network. From what you wrote I understand that you are able to ping your server with the shares but not able to access files. If you click start > run and then type "\\\" are you able to access anything?

So if I need to access a share called "Files" on my server named "Company" I would type the command like this: \\192.168.20.254\Files

and that should get me to my share. Are you able to do this with out an error?

[metroidfox]

Nope, I can't connect to a network drive.

1- \\IpAddress does not work

2- \\IpAddress\share does not work

3- net use f: \\IpAddress\share password /user:username does not work

Even if I can ping it and get access to the web interface. I also can't use remote desktop to connect to it.

And how can we actually interact with anything on the network when we don't even have an Ip Address for it

Edit on January 18th, 2010:

After spending time with an Cisco enginner about this problem, I now understand much more better how all this VPN connection works and that enabled me to find the solution to my problem, so I'm gonna share it with you with hope it will help you solve your problem.

Here's how it works: When you connect to the router using QuickVPN, it creates on the VPN router, some kind of interface or connection that will redirect what the remote computer sends to the target and what the target sends to the remote computer. Here's an example to help you.

In my network, the subnet is 192.168.50.0/255.255.255.0, the address or my router is 192.168.50.1 and my server is 192.168.50.2.

From my remote network, the subnet is 192.168.51.0/255.255.255.0 and my computer's address 192.168.51.100

The other VPN routers I have seen would create a connection on my computer and giving it an ip from the remote network, for example, I could get 192.168.50.3 so my computer would use that connection for communications with my server. So the server would get requests from the ip address 192.168.50.3 instead of 192.168.51.100 and when he would answer to 192.168.50.3, the router would grad the packet and send it to the distant computer by the Internet.

This router works a bit the same way, but not the exact same thing.

When you send a request to the server it will receive it from the ip 192.168.51.100 since QuickVPN doesn't assign us a new ip address and since that ip isn't from the network, it will send its answer to the gateway, like it would normally do for any connection to the internet and that's when the router captures to packet to send it to my computer by the Internet. And the same way on my computer, QuickVPN will watch for requests to the 192.168.50.0 network to send them the to vpn and will let the other requests pass normally.

So for my problem (that others may encounter), my file server was to accept some connections from any computer, but the remote desktop and the network drives parts were set to answer only to the "private network", so it would refuse connections that werent from the subnet 192.168.50.0/255.255.255.0. All that simple once you understand the mechanics of this particular VPN router.

Thanks for the help you tried to give me, now I hope it might help you.

Ce message a été modifié par: metroidfox

[kiboro999]

So if I read this right then I have to allow fileshares from anywhere on the internet? That is completely unacceptable.

[metroidfox]

Read my last post