VPN (PPTP) not working outside of my home WIFI network... Why?

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VPN (PPTP) not working outside of my home WIFI network... Why?

Can anyone please point me in the right direction here.... Anyone?

I am attempting to connecting a virtual private network (aka, VPN) via PPTP outside of my home WIFI network (ex- public WIFI's) to no success at all! Why?

I have setup my VPN server via my Win 7 laptop and everything seems to be working like a charm when I am connected to my home WIFI...but when I attempt to connect to my VPN outside of my home WIFI (say a public WIFI) it will not connect! What gives?

For those of you wondering, yes, I have opened up the correct ports on my cable modem router (1723 for PPTP on TCP) as well as port 500 for UDP. And yes, I have also disabled any firewall and anti-virus or whatever the **** is necessary to get my PC's VPN incoming connections to work from the outside...

I am connected using my WAN IP btw, in case anyone thinks I'm just using my LAN IP which is not the case here!

I know what the **** I am doing, so I ain't no complete noob to any of this stuff... I just don't get why I can connect perfectly fine to my VPN server when I'm on my home WIFI, but when I leave the house to say my sister's house to use her WIFI, or if I'm at a public WIFI the darn thing tells me that a connection to my VPN server cannot be established...

The only way I can ever get this to work outside of my home WIFI is to enable DMZ mode on my cable modem router to the laptop that is hosting the incoming PPTP connection. But, I don't want to place my laptop in DMZ mode just for this stinking PPTP VPN connection... The **** man?

There has got to be a bloody way to get PPTP connections running w/o enabling DMZ mode...

What in the heck am I doing wrong here? Does anyone here have any idea?

Has anyone even gotten this to work outside of their home WIFI? or even on cellular?

Me, I have had no luck at all with this, and I am coming up on nearly a full week trying here... Hence me finally taking the plunge into this Apple community message boards to post my help question in hopes that someone out there may know what the deal is here...

So once again, just a quick recap here, I need to get a PPTP VPN connection on my iPhone 5 (iOS 8) from outside of my home WIFI connnection, without me needing to enable DMZ mode on my router... It works perfectly fine when I'm connected to my WAN IP on my home connection, but outside of my home connection no dice...

There has got to be some other ports that I am missing here that needs to be forwarded aside from the usual 1723 and 500? Am I right?

Why would it work perfectly fine on DMZ mode, but not just having those 2 ports forwarded?

Any help I can get on this is greatly appreciated! A million thanks goes out to anyone who could help me figure out this dilemma of mine...

Thank you in advance.

Posted on Nov 21, 2014 2:54 AM

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Answer 1

Sooner Al

Level 2

275 points

Nov 21, 2014 5:05 AM in response to fnafici

First Port 500 is not used for PPTP VPN a. Close it...

Secondly your router must pass both TCP 1723 traffic and GRE Protocol 47 traffic. Some routers call the latter "PPTP Pass Through" or "VPN Pass Through" or automagically enable that traffic when TCP Port 1723 is opened. Check the router manual or manufacturers web site for help with that. Note that some consumer grade routers can have problems with the GRE Protocol 47 traffic. I have found that it can be highly dependent on firmware. As always YMMV...

This article details how to test this using two Windows computers.

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/bb877965

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Answer 2

fnafici Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 21, 2014 5:46 AM in response to Sooner Al

Sooner Al,

Firstly, I want to thank you for taking the time to reply to my post here, really appreciate it man 🙂

Here is what I have on my admin cable modem router page-

Keep in mind now that I have always had the "PPTP Pass Through" option checked marked this entire time... So, nothing new there...

And here is how my forwarded port looks like on my cable modem router admin page-

For the record my "private IP address" is my LAN IP

Still doesn't work outside of my HOME WIFI or CELLULAR though...

In case you are wondering, I am using my WAN IP address on my iPhone PPTP VPN configuration... Not my LAN IP (192.x.x.x). This way I can connect to my PPTP VPN server from anywhere...

My only configuration that seems to work properly is only when I put my laptop's static LAN IP into DMZ mode on the router... But, I'd much rather prefer if I can just forward the ports instead... Is there no way to do this?

Just forwarding port 1723 to my LAN IP does absolutely nothing for me...

And yes, as I had said in my first post above, I have all firewalls on my laptop turned off! I can scan port 1723 from my WAN IP and it says the port is OPEN from the outside... So, it's not that...

And I can only connect to the PPTP VPN when I'm connected to my HOME WIFI...

I need this to work outside of my HOME WIFI... Like other WIFI networks outside of my home... PUBLIC or whatever... And it doesn't...

Thus far I have yet to find any solution anywhere to my issue here...

A very nagging issues at that....

Thanks for your reply and that link, I will check that out momentarily..........

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Answer 3

fnafici Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 21, 2014 8:15 AM in response to fnafici

Nevermind... I just figured out another way to do the setup that I want... But, it wasn't what I was looking for... I still have to use DMZ to get my PPTP VPN server on my laptop to work outside of my home wifi on my iPhone... Oh well... Whatever works I guess I should just be happy with that........ 😐

Thanks anyway..........

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