VPN fails over wireless

[dthornton]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

Note that all connections work flawlessly when using copper connections.

We are using a PIX 506E firewall for VPN connectivity. My test notebook works fine at our business with our wireless network (WPA w/Radius, TKIP). It connects quickly and reliably.

At home it also works very well except for one issue. If I'm connected wirelessly and attempt to start the VPN I lose the wireless connection after a few seconds. Note that the VPN works flawlessly from this notebook if I use a copper ethernet connection. Here's what happens:

I start my wireless connection.

Windows attempts to find a DHCP server (there is none), then falls back to the alternate configuration which uses a static IP.

Connection is established and is solid.

I start the VPN.

The VPN client finds the VPN server and begins to make the connection.

The wireless connection is lost.

The VPN client fails (no network connection).

The wireless connection automatically re-establishes itself.

Details:

Notebook is a Toshiba. Win XP SP2 with all the latest patches.

Wireless NIC is a Netgear WAG511 (new).

Access Point: Netgear WG102 V1.0.31

LucidLink Client V2.2

VPN Client: Cisco 4.6.04.0043 (latest release, originally tried this with 4.6.01.0019)

Wireless network: WPA-PSK TKIP

Message I get at disconnect:

Secure VPN Connection terminated locally by the client.

Reason 422: Lost contact with the security gateway. Check your network connection.

To reiterate - The company connection works flawlessly, the home connection works flawlessly except for the VPN issue. Signals are strong (home test I'm within 10 feet of the access point).

Is there some incompatability with WPA-PSK TKIP wireless connections and the VPN client?

[pupo888]

I had a similar problem. In my case a different wireless NIC worked fine. I suppose there was a difference in how the two NICs communicated with the wireless AP (Linksys) when doing IPSec over an encrypted wireless connection. IPSec over wireless worked fine when I disabled WPA - which was not what I wanted - so I changed card. As a side not Linksys wireless NIC to Linksys wireless AP did not work either. Only Cisco wireless NIC to Linksys AP, and Linksys wireless NIC to Netgear AP, and Netgear wireless NIC to Netgear AP worked in our testing. Go figure.

Another thing to check would be the XP SP2 firewall. If firewall settings are configured through group policy then the settings for the domain firewall profile and local firewall profile might be different. (ie. it could be off on the corpnet and on when not logged onto the domain).

Just a couple of ideas.

[smenist]

Yes, we are having the same problems. The VPN works perfect from any wired location in the world. It just seems to happen when my users go wireless. If they're wireless they connect fine and run programs like Lotus Notes. After a few minutes they just drop. Again we have determined this is anywhere using any wireless connection. One of my users actually thought he had it narrowed down to Starbucks :)

We have all flavors of wireless users (laptop, desktop, DSL, cable) so we have narrowed this down to a wireless only issue.

-running two pix 520s (failover)

-version 6.3(5)

-all users use the Microsoft VPN adapter

Anyone Else Seeing this? Curious to know....

[trietgiang]

Hi there,

We are having the same problem as well. Has anyone managed to solve this yet?

Ours is Seirra Wireless Aircard 580 (1xEV-DO), VPN Client 4.7 and Cisco 857w router.

I noticed that after 10 seconds, the card changes status to Dormant, and the VPN client simply drops the connection.

Best regards,

Triet

[trietgiang]

Just to let you know, after we changed to another more stable APN (Access Point Network?) the connection is normal.

It turned out to be the network issue, nothing to do with the card.

Triet