Why does my VPN Server time out after about 5 - 15 minutes of inactivity?

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Level 1

4 points

Why does my VPN Server time out after about 5 - 15 minutes of inactivity?

Hi!

So I've got this VPN server setup on my 2009 Mac Mini and it works great! No problems connecting and I can access everything when I'm away from home fabulously.

I've got one minor issue though - every time when I'm away from home and I'm connected to my VPN with my Macbook or my iPhone regardless, it always times out between 5 and 15 minutes of inactivity. It's not a huge deal but it kind of wears out when you have to reconnect every time I get up and get a glass of water.

I've looked at the settings for the timeout rule in serveradmin settings vpn and the DisconnectOnIdleTimer is set to 7200 which is two hours I believe.

So I'm a little stumped, maybe someone can help?

Thanks in advance,

Josh

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Jun 4, 2016 8:30 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 5, 2016 9:16 AM in response to joshfromiowa

What type of firewall at you using? The firewall may be terminating the connection if it thinks it is idle. Try opening a ping session to constantly send traffic across the VPN connection. See if the persistent traffic allows the system to stay connected. If the connection persist, you may need to look at your firewall settings.

Reid

Apple Consultants Network

Author - "El Capitan Server – Foundation Services"

Author - "El Capitan Server – Control & Collaboration"

Author - "El Capitan Server – Advanced Services"

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Answer 2

joshfromiowa Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 5, 2016 10:08 AM in response to Strontium90

I checked the firewall it's been completely off to begin with, should I still ping it? Would it give me details on where the connection timed out?

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Answer 3

Jun 5, 2016 1:36 PM in response to joshfromiowa

What device is acting as your firewall? I assume you are not using OS X in NAT configuration. So when you track your network, you are receiving a connection from an ISP. What does that connection terminate? Is it an ISP provided router/firewall? Do you have your own firewall? Is the server on your LAN? In other words, what device did you configure the port forward on?

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Answer 4

joshfromiowa Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 5, 2016 7:00 PM in response to Strontium90

No my ISP gave me a modem so I could use my Airport Time Capsule. In the Server app in the DNS window I have a couple forwarding servers. I guess it should be worth mentioning that since my ISP isn't capable of assigning me a static IP address I use a service known as DynDns. They gave me a hostname that my VPN Server uses.

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