I can't access local print server after Nortel Contivity VPN Client

[jrreeves]

I have a small home network where I have two computers - my personal computer (Running Windows XP Home) and my work computer (Running Windows XP Professional). My home network has a Linksys router BEFSX41 (LAN IP Address 192.168.2.1). Because I have two computers, I also purchased a Linksys Print Server EFSP42 (Static IP Address 192.168.2.50) so I wouldn't have to change the printer connection to the different computers all the time.

Everything works fine until I connect to my office through Nortel Contivity VPN Client V04_15.14. After I connect, I can no longer print to my print server from my work computer and I get no response when I ping my print server.

One of my friends (who works for a different company) was able to get around this problem by adding an entry to the route table after he connects through Nortel. (In Windows 2000 by typing "route add 192.168.2.50 MASK 255.255.255.255 192.168.2.1&quot. However, this does not work for me because if I change the route table, the Nortel client gives me an error message "The routing table cannot be altered after the Contivity VPN Connection has been established. The Contivity VPN Connection has been Closed."

I am obviously not an expert when it comes to VPN, but does anyone have any ideas on how I can access nodes on my local network (i.e. my print server) after the VPN connection has been established?

Thanks in advance.

 

[sydlow]

You need to see if the Nortel contivity switch you are connecting to is configured for split tunneling. If it is not than this is probably the cause of you not being able to reach your printer. Can you get to the internet after you tunnel in? And if you can is your internet traffic being tunneled through you vpn tunnel? If the Nortel switch you are tunneling to is not doing split tunneling, -then you will only have one default route to the Nortel switch. Also I don't know how your friend is updating his routing table after tunneling into the Nortel switch. The VPN client will drop the connection if it see's any updates to your routing table. It does this for security reasons. I hope this helps.

 

[jrreeves]

sydlow - Thanks for the reply. You are right, I don't think the Nortel switch is configured for split tunneling. I can get to the internet after I tunnel in, but the traffic is being tunneled through the VPN tunnel. I guess I just won't be able to access my print server while I am connected to my corporate network. Worst case I can download files to my computer, disconnect my VPN connection and print from there. (A little bit of a pain, but oh well.)

As for my friend, I just found out that his VPN Client is a pretty old version (V02_62.xx), so I assume that is why he is able to modify his routing table without dropping his connection.

Thanks for your help!