laptop VPN access over PCs cable modem & internet sharing 1

[perfect]

You seem to know the answer to a problem I'm facing.

My W98SE home PC is connected to a cable modem via a network card. I
have second network card with a cross-cable to my laptop (W2000).
I have internet access on both machines.
I can connect to my work network via a VPN on my PC but not through my
laptop.
VPN doesn't connect and gives a message "logon failure due to: remote
host not responding".

Company helpdesk is letting me down saying they don't help with VPN's
across cable modem. The cable modem connection is faster than any other
alternative I have and need it badly to be able to work from home.

I'll be greatful if anyone could offer some advice.
Pula
Amsterdam - Netherlands
(working for an IT firm!)

 

[Guest_imported]

Well, your cable modem is only a means for the connection. I had to setup this up for my wife, she works for Lucent. At home we run a lan with a 8 port netgear hub and a netgear router(rt311) you can also get a netgear router with 4 ports built in if you do not want to buy a hub and a router. Anyway, the router will give your home network a single IP address leaving the house(ISP will give your router one IP the router will give each PC/Laptop a unique IP). With that single IP to single IP in your home network you now have one ip on laptop- one ip on router- so VPN will only have one ip to translate eg. 1 to 1 to 1. right now you have isp giving you one IP and 2 computers sharing hence 1 to 2 when you need 1 to 1 to 1. That is why your computer can get on vpn and your laptop cannot (If you want proof. ( type winipcfg at the run command in windows on each computer/laptop and you will see that you have a different IP on both machines - yes 1 isp to 2 computers) you need 1 isp to 1 router to 1 computer) this will work with DSL and cable. The router will tell you how to plug up the computers to the hub and the hub up to the router, Good luck cytats@flash.net.

 

[ianf]

If all else fails, register the MAC address of your laptop network card with your cable access providers and connect directly to your modem with your laptop. Most providers allow multiple MACs associated with your connection.

To get over the issue of a changing DHCP server when you swap over connections use
ipconfig /renew_all
from the cmd window in Windows2000.

This could work (???) if the problem lies on the client end of the VPN only. Ian

"IF" is not a word it's a way of life

 

[perfect]

cytats, ianf,

Thank you very much for the responses.

My cable operator allows only 1 MAC address per home! The cost of a new device is same as switching to a DSL connection (from phone operator) with guaranteed bandwidth, I'm weighing that option at the moment.
It is frustrating to change e-mail accounts again, but may have to teach 'UPC Chello' a lesson. UPC chello is probably the least service-friendly monopoly there exists in the Netherlands!

thanks again. Pula

 

[ITProf]

Another solution to your problem would be to install a router that directly connects to the cable modem. Then setup address translation on the router to translate the IP address's you manually assign to your PC and laptop to the IP address of the router. By doing this, it doesnt matter which machine you connect to the internet from, they will all appear to be coming from the address that your ISP has provided. However, since you are using DHCP to obtain an address from your ISP, you will have to either create a script to change the NAT translation everytime your DHCP address changes, or you will have to manually change it yourself. This sounds like what cytats was trying to explain above.

Chris