Cannot ping host on corporate LAN through the VPN

[bigjav]

I have just finished setting up a VPN for our corporate LAN, everything works great, except I am unable to ping 2 hosts on the corporate LAN. I can ping every other host that has a NATed IP except for two, and those two host just happen to be the ones I need the most. I have special ACL for these hosts on the Firewall, other than that there is nothing different.

There is however one wierd thing; once I ping the VPN computer trying to acccess the corporate LAN host, from the host computer, I am then able to ping the host through the VPN.

Let's call the Corporate LAN host Mugsy, and the computer connecting through the VPN to access Mugsy, PC1.

PC1 cannot ping Mugsy through VPN.
Once I ping PC1 from Mugsy, I can then ping Mugsy from PC-1.

Maybe that makes more sense, anyway I hope some dear soul can help me.

I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[MattWray]

Have you tried adding a route for Mugsy? It sounds like PC1 doesn't know a route to Mugsy, untill Mugsy pings him, then he sees the way... Just a thought....

Thanks,

Matt Wray
MCSE, MCSA, MCP, CCNA

http://www.sss-steel.com

 

[ChicagoTechNet]

assuming you don't have firewall on the host, use tracert or pathping to find out the path.

Robert Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Windows, Network and How to at

http://www.ChicagoTech.net

 

[SlideWhistle]

I have been dealing with nearly the exact same issue. W2K Clients connecting to W2K Server SP4 w/ RRAS. Clients successfully establish VPN tunnels with server, but then after a variable amount of time, can no longer ping or communicate to server, either by Name or IP. Server can always ping to client. Once server pings to client, client can once again ping to server for a variable period of time. The VPN tunnel is NOT dropped during these interruptions, so we know it is not a bandwidth issue.

Temporary workaround: We created a .BAT file on the Server with multiple lines:
Ping ClientMachine1
Ping ClientMachine2
etc.
Then used Windows Scheduler to run the batch file every 5 minutes. It's not a good solution, but it is a reasonably effective workaround.

I am eager to learn of any other people experiencing similar problems, and especially if anyone has a specific answer to the real cause and permanent solution.

Thanks in advance!