Q: L2TP VPN and Back to My Mac

i'm pretty sure it's conflicting with Back to My Mac. i'd been fiddling around with it for days why i couldn't establish a VPN connection on a VPN gateway (win2k8r2) behind Airport Extreme (Back to My Mac) enabled.

i thought at first it was the firewall, but it was not, then i checked the ports, i even tried PPTP, but i couldn't establish a successful connection even though i have the same VPN setup as with the one in our workplace.

i then called Apple Support about this issue, i asked what ports Back to My Mac are using, he told me a dozen of ports which includes the ports for L2TP (1701, 4500, 500). and some in PPTP ports too i think, i can't remember them all.

it would be nice though if the two (VPN and Back to My Mac) can run without conflicts. but yea... i knew already at first when i first used Back to My Mac it's basically a VPN linked to your Apple ID. simple/good implementation by Apple but i wish they used different ports right?

edit: actually it is documented, it is written somewhere in Apple Support that you have to turn off Back to My Mac/MobileMe to use VPN. i just read it the other day.

This is so disgusting. This issue wasted me hours of time.

Is it not possible for Apple to pick different ports?

This is still prevalent today on El Capitan. If anyone has OS X server installed, do not turn on Back To My Mac if you plan on having a VPN setup.

Doing so knocked my server out, and i had to go through a significant amount of work to fix it.

To fix:

Turn off Back To My Mac, and do a kickstart

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/k ickstart -activate -configure -access -off -restart -agent -privs -all -allowAccessFor -allUsers              

Then do a

sudo launchctl stop com.apple.racoon

sudo launchctl start com.apple.racoon

and reboot, and when the server comes back up restart the VPN service through the OS X server console .

Hi,

I have tried your post, but still no luck.

My VPN status shows Available - Reachability unknown

I am able connect my vpn from another device on the same network. I am not able to connect from internet.

I am getting the following error when I try to connect from my iPhone 4s.

The L2TP-VPN server id not respond. Try reconnecting. If the problem continues, verify your settings and contact your administrator.

OS - OS X El Capitan

version 10.11.2

Please help if any one knows the solution.

wow, i'm on 10.10.5 for my server (10.11.2 for clients and iOS 9.2) and was pretty upset when i read your post, as i had just enabled it on a whim as i do a lot of remote stuff, but i figured i would play with it for some fun.

I was able to get it going again rather quickly with both still active, my server showing up in back to mac, AND connecting via L2TP. There's a lot of information out there saying it's impossible, so i just figured i would say it's apparently not, so don't give up, although it may just have been fixed.

I just re-forwarded the ports, toggled VPN. good to go.

What did you do top make it work?Because i run all the latest software and since yesterday i activate "back to my Mac" and i can't connect via L2TP i'm not @ home right now and i remotely shut down "remote to my Mac" but still no VPN via L2TP

I finally got things working - in additional to disabling BTMM on your server, you also have to disable it on your Airport base station (in case you use one of those) - I tested things and L2TP now works for me after disabling BTMM on both.