[SGVLUG] Networking question

[Claude Felizardo]

Do most people here top post now?

I assume your regular Internet connections are fine when the VPN dies?
 It's not a heat problem with your equipment?

Is there any chance that your problems might be related to when it
rains or does it happen periodically like every couple of days?   When
you talked to the tech people, did they say what they thought the
problem might be?

A friend of a friend works for Pacbell/SBC/AT&T and does DSL
installations.  He had a bunch of stories about what could go wrong.
One was about a customer who after years of no problems suddenly
started having intermittent problems.  He'd call tech support but by
the time they made it out, everything was fine.  Don't recall how many
times this happened but they eventually tracked it down to the
neighborhood box on the street.  Seems there was a leaky seal on the
door that was allowing water from a sprinkler to get in but would it
would dry enough after day or so.  The fix was to move his connection
up to an unused terminal and mark the bottom terminals as bad (there
was a specific term he used which I forget).

A former coworker had a reverse problem.  Everything worked fine until
she had DSL installed and then weeks later people asked here why she
stopped answering the phone.  Turned out the circuit they put her on
was not capable of generating a strong enough ring voltage for the
relatively older phones she had in the house.  She wasn't exceeding
the REN allowance for her house but I think she did have at least one
phone with a real electromagnetic ringer.  The initial techs couldn't
figure it out but SHE was able to determine that if she plugged in a
relatively new phone, then it could ring but if she plugged in the
others then nada.  DSL worked fine.  I think it was several visits
before they were able to resolve things.  Don't recall if they just
moved her line to another card in the box or if it was a config
setting to output more current or what.

As usual it took several calls and it was usually the experienced tech
that figured it out.

Anyway, I don't use VPN too often at home but haven't had any problems
when i tried.  The sessions were usually several hours.  I'm still
using the original DSL modem I got ages ago and still use my original
router.  There are no specific settings for VPN.  Hey,  I just checked
the router, it's approaching 26 months of uptime.  Yeeha Netgear!


claude



On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 9:18 PM, Matt Campbell <dvdmatt at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmmm,
>
> I'm finding something odd.  It's an MS thing so not really on topic for this
> list, but it may be related to my ISP problem.
>
> When I am connected to the Internet I sometimes get kicked out of my work's
> VPN connection.  (The MS exchange server box doesn't show anything in the
> logs, it still thinks I'm dialed in.)  When I try and reconnect I get
> 'connecting - authenticating - (hang)'.  The logs on the server show that I
> have been authenticated.  My computer says the server never answered back.
>
> I've heard there may be problems with routers not allowing VPN pass-through
> properly.  Has anyone experience this problem?
>
> This problem happens on both my Linksys WRT300N and now on the new Linksys
> WRTU54G-TM.  The Security->VPN_Passthrough settings are wide open: IPSec,
> PPTP and L2TP Passthrough are enabled.
>
> I find that if I power cycle the modem, then power cycle the router, then
> disable and re-enable my network connection that I can sometimes connect.
>
> The ongoing problem of the modem dropping connection can be resolved by
> power cycling the modem.  Does anyone have a spare DSL modem I can borrow to
> see if this is the source of all my problems?
>
> Matti, I like your suggestion, but it seems a bit heavy handed just to limit
> the amount of finger pointing.  In that it is not a sure I'll save that for
> the last option.  Changing to a cable modem would at least change my problem
> set. ;)  You suggest a service monitoring tool... I can tell when it goes
> down.  What specifically did you have in mind?
>
> Michael,  I have the modem and router plugged into a good UPS so I don't
> think it is power dropout or fluctuations.  I can try a different UPS if you
> think it's a good idea just to eliminate this as a possibility.  EarthLink
> has run performance on the line/device a number of times, and all but the
> last claim to have discovered the problem on their end.  This last time they
> noted that the device was running a little slow.
>
> Has the person who picked up my spare DSL modem at the LUG swap meeting last
> year found a use for it yet?  If it's just sitting in a closet I would love
> to buy it back from you.
>
> Matt