How do I set up L2TP VPN?

I've been Google searching for a tutorial on how to do this, but I get plague by "how to connect to VPN" articles and "how to host PPTP VPN". The only L2TP tutorials are too hard to follow or poorly written.

I seem to have set it up properly because I can connect to the server's VPN by LAN. However, if I enter the public domain or IP, it doesn't connect. I have enabled forwarding for the ports 500, 1701, 1723, and 4500 to the server. I also forwarded GRE and ESP. I know HOW to port forward because I have successfully forwarded other ports such as SSH to the server. My firewall security on my router is on the lowest setting.

I still can't connect even if I make my server a DMZ host.

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.7), 4 GB RAM, 2.4 GHz, 500 GB dual HD

Posted on Jun 26, 2011 10:20 AM

18 replies

drtj

Level 1

8 points

Nov 13, 2012 10:45 AM in response to Mac OS 9000

I've had problems connecting L2TP VPN from my Mountain Lion Macbook Pro to a MacMini running 10.7 Server. Port 500 was initially forwarded UDP only and making it TCP/UDP fixed the problem. No idea why but it was a fluke that I found it.

Sep 13, 2013 6:22 PM in response to Mac OS 9000

I found this page based on my searching, and due to the exact same problem as you Mac OS 9000.

I hope you've got it working now.

To get my Snow Leopard Server VPN visible to the Internet besides just the LAN — no matter what sort of ports and protocols I allowed through — didn't seem to work.

Go to Firewall Settings > DMZ Host > and enter the IP address of your server. (I'm assuming -- and for the benefit of others -- you've set up the DHCP IP address for your server to be statically set by the Actiontec router.)

May 4, 2014 2:24 AM in response to Mac OS 9000

I found that my FritzBox router's uPNP support already had allocated one of the UDP ports to a different device. After I cleared that uPNP allocation the VPN worked, so that's another thing to check.

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How do I set up L2TP VPN?