Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Help curing browsing network at remote end of VPN

This is topic Help curing browsing network at remote end of VPN in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 03-23-2004, 03:25 PM:

I have installed two Linksys BEFSX41 routers. They have VPN endpoint's built in.
One at home, one at the biz.

Routers say the VPN connection is working and connected.
XP-PRO at the biz end, Win98SE on one computer at home and ME another machine at home. Same results on both.

The problem is, the XP-PRO machine will only show up in Network Neighborhood on the home machines, sometimes. It just seems to be a random event.
And when it does appear, I can't open it to browse. I get an error, that the computer does not exist on the net.

What am I missing? I assume it's something I have failed to configure properly. [Eek!]

Can someone point me to the info?
All suggestions greatly appreciated.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 03-23-2004, 05:04 PM:

Make sure that NetBIOS is enabled on both sides of the tunnel.

Also having the IP ranges in different subnet will help greatly so leaving the Linksys default of 192.168.x.x will not work for one of the routers.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 03-23-2004, 05:15 PM:

Thanks Jason,
I do have different subnets at each location.
Both locations have the same workgroup name as well.
I had seen someplace else this was a must.

I just discovered that I can connect successfully to the drive at the biz on the XPPRO machine by navigating by \\***.***.*.***\ which is the private IP of the machine I want to connect to. Connection fails when attempting to use computers name.

On my home 98SE machine, Netbios is greyed out in TCP/IP properties, but it does show a check mark.

I'll have to check the XP machine.

Is TCP\IP sufficent for a network protocol communication?
Or do I possibly need Netbuei or something else installed as well. Then again, I thought microsoft stopped supporting Netbuei in XP? Thoughts?

Thanks for the help,
Any more suggestions?

[ 03-24-2004, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: Brad Allen ]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-23-2004, 05:25 PM:

NetBEUI isn't routable and won't work over a VPN. And, yes, I don't think it's even available in current Win32 implementations.

You could solve the naming issue by adding static entries to each machine's LMHOSTS file (in %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc), but there may be an easier way to make this work.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 03-24-2004, 12:43 AM:

On the VPN tunnel page, in the Advanced Settings window, make sure that NetBIOS Broadcast is enabled. Windows uses NetBIOS for network browsing (Network Neighborhood) etc. Make sure that this is enabled on both routers.

Also make sure that Anti-Replay is enabled as well.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-24-2004, 12:53 AM:

just out of curiosity by listing your IP addresses on these pages will that open yourself up for a potential hacker to acces your computer. Just a thought because I would hate to see that happen to someone.

Posted by Nicholas Suchyta (Member # 2050) on 03-24-2004, 12:57 AM:

Try to ping the remote machine that is not showing up in the Network Neighborhood. One BIG flaw in XP is that it's networking with WIN98 isn't very strong. I would just type the computers IP address in the browser, and then create a shortcut for it, that way you shouldn't have any problems.

Posted by Kyle Spillane (Member # 2152) on 03-24-2004, 03:01 AM:

Listing most IP addresses could invite trouble. But any traffic between those two computers travels through the VPN and is encrypted. The IP address listed is a Private IP Address. Which means it's non-routable over the internet.

See this (RFC 1918) for more information.

Anyhoo,

If you can navigate through by using the IP address a quick bet would be to map the remote drive as a network drive. You might also want to make sure NetBIOS over TCP/IP is turned on in your TCP/IP properties.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 03-24-2004, 02:24 PM:

Thanks all.

More weirdness. Now sometimes the computer shows up in Network Neighborhood and I can successfully navigate by clicking. But sometimes I can't. It comes and goes.

I'll check the suggested settings.

What does Anti-Replay do?

And if you've seen my other post about weird router log entries, that may partially explain what's going on.

I'm a hundred miles away, and not comfortable doing some of this remotely. Hate to crash the computer with the wkend coming up.

Thanks everyone!

Update: I turned on Netbios Broadcast in the router here at home, it was already turned on @ remote site. Since turning it on 2 hrs ago, I now can't connect at all, even by IP. And both routers show the VPN as connected. I do believe the remote computer to still be up, as It is still blasting out port 135 as I've refered to in another post.

Thoughts? Thank you!

[ 03-24-2004, 04:28 PM: Message edited by: Brad Allen ]