VPN and Airport Extreme (802.11n)

I've been struggling with this problem on my wife's computer for weeks and was minutes away from driving to Best Buy to buy a new router when I saw the post below.

It worked like a charm on 7.3.1.

Thank you, sir.

Jeffrey_Kenney wrote:
I was suffering the same issue until ten minutes ago:
AEBS 7.2.1 (N), Cisco VPN Client (4.8.01.0300) on an XP box.. I could connect, but no network services would work. I did not try the default host workaround, and simply made the following two (previously recommended) changes:

1) Changed the addresses scheme on the AEBS to 192.168.1.X

2) Changed cisco vpn client transport settings: selected "modify" under the "connection entries" menu and I unchecked the box that enables transparent tunneling under the transport tab

After that everything was fine. Sorry to hear folks are still having troubles. Hope this helps. Thanks to everybody on this thread for posting their solutions. I'd be dead in the water without you.

J.

According to the specifications on the new AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS), it can handle "VPN Passthrough (IPSec, PPTP, and L2TP)." However, it is not a VPN device itself.

Where in the Airport Utility can you configure to allow VPN Passthrough? I am using the Nortel VPN Client for work (Work from home) and cannot connect. I am able to this with the Linksys router I have without a problem. Can anybody point me to the setting in the utility to allow PPTP and L2TP?

I'm having a similar problem with the Nortel VPN client and my new Airport Extreme (802.11n). I'm replacing an Airport Extreme (802.11g) that worked fine with PPTP, L2TP, IPSEC passthru. No configuration necessary with the old unit...it just worked! No dice with the new base station. I don't see anywhere in the new unit's config to enable the VPN passthru so I assume its supposed to "just work" like the old unit.

Anybody else having any issues with VPN software and Airport Extreme (802.11n)??

Power Mac G5 2.0Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I'm having the same experience except with a standard Windows RAS VPN client. Worked as expected with previous Linksys WRT54G setup.

I encountered this issue today (with Nortel Networks VPN). I likewise upgraded from a Linksys 54g that worked fine.

I'm going to assume that the answer is probably that I need (for my VPN machine) to assign a static IP and then port forward to it.

I'm guessing this is the Manual Settings/Advanced/Port Mapping pane.... but as far as I can tell there is minimal to no actual documentation for that.

In the interim, I've taken to directly connecting to my laptop when I need to VPN. That's not quite so special an experience.

In any event, has anyone had any luck resolving the issue?

iMac Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I was able to find a resolution for the VPN issues with my setup. I started by running through the differences between my previous router and the new AEBS. One thing that stood out was the addressing scheme - my other router assigned addresses starting at 192.168.1.X, and the AEBS defaults to 10.0.0.X. It seemed harmless enough, but this scheme looked familiar and when I checked my corporate network I found they were the same. I remembered from one of my TCP/IP classes, that the VPN Server and NAT routed home PC could not be on the same subnet, and when I changed the addressing scheme on the AEBS to 192.168.1.X to match my Linksys router the VPN connections all began to work properly. I've been up for a few hours now with no problems. I hope this solution carries through to the rest of you, and suggest to Apple that they save themselves a few hundred thousand support calls and use the addressing scheme common to most home routers.

Unfortunately, I tried this and had no luck, unfortunately.

I'm still having to revert to direct connect to the cable modem to VPN. 😟

I originally tried this early on in my troubleshooting as well. No change. I had to revert back to my AEBS (802.11g) unit.

Yeah, this is a real showstopper for me. Need better documentation on how to set up VPN and Nortel VPN access with Windows XP and the new AirPort Extreme N version.

iJoseph - Did you perhaps make any other changes? I am also using the Nortel VPN. Works fine on the ABES (g), but not on the (n). After entering my login, etc. there is just no response. Eventually the VPN client times out. My DHCP IP addresses and other settings appear identical between the (g) and the (n) extremes.

I'm in the same situation. My iBook G4 is running Checkpoint SecureClient VPN software. Worked without any special settings on the AEBS G . Installed the AEBS N tonight, and the iBook can not authenticate. The error message says the gateway is not responding.
Help, Apple!

I'm having the same issue with my 802.11n and my company's proprietary VPN client software. I was able to connect briefly yesterday (for periods of about 1-2 hours) but it kept dropping out and then eventually it wouldn't connect at all until I rebooted the cable modem and 802.11n. However, even after rebooting there still seems to be issues. I'm glad I'm not the only one, I was pulling my hair out yesterday trying to get this to work.

David

MacBook Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM, 5400 RPM 160GB Mac OS X (10.4.8)

worked for me... I don't know what VPN we use on our corp servers but I never had any issues with my old AXBS with either 10. or 192. addressing. My guess is that if I switch back to 10.0.1. IP addresses it will still work but I can't try it until later... thanks for the tip!

BTW, I'm finding the range is definitely better even without N clients. In fact, even much better than the new Linksys WRT350N that I just replaced with this.

PB G4, PM G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Getting the exact same thing with Nortel Contivity VPN Client - worked fine with AEBS(g), can ping the VPN server but no connect. Tried iJoesph's idea but no dice. Help! This is a show stopper, a big one.

iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7)