Linksys WAG54GS and VPN problems

[ms1mm0]

I had problems establishing a VPN session through my linksys router - and saw so many other people have the same problems. But I worked out how to get it working without a fuss - without the "you must have a static IP address" as advised by tech support at linksys.

Log on to your router.

Click "Gaming and Applications" section.

Click "Port Triggering".

Then enter an app name (any thing you like) in the application field.
In each of the four port fields enter 500 and tick enable
Do the same for 4500 or what ever the other port number is on your VPN server.

That should do the trick. No need for static IP addresses or any thing out of the ordinary.

Good Luck

Mark.

 

[John Lewis]

This seems a bit confused.

I am not particuarly familiar with the WAG54GS, but in general using a VPN client behind a Linksys is not difficult. The port triggering is not necessary, simply enable IPSec passthrough or PPTP passthrough (depending upon the type of VPN connection). Enabling both is not a problem at all. I have never really understood why they are not both enabled by default.

The port triggering setup described has similar effect, but may not work with all VPN clients. With the VPN passthrough options, the appropriate ports are triggered based upon a control connection on another port.

The need for a static IP (on the LAN side) comes about when hosting a VPN server. A server setup always requires a fixed forwarded port to begin the connection and it is not possible to forward to an address that may change from time to time.

All of this is generally explained in the manual, but again I have never used this particular model.

On another note, firmware on some Linksys models (all fairly old) is broken and simply will not allow a VPN connection to pass through properly, so it is not always a simple issue to deal with.