Traveling Difficulties with VPN

[nokuntrol]

My company uses VPN (PTPP) so that remote users can access the network and data shares. The problem is that when some users travel, they run into difficulties connecting to the VPN.

For example, some hotels in Asia offer a broadband connection. Unfortunatly, some of these hotels also block the ports that our VPN uses. If the users use a dial-up connection, there isn't a problem.

One of my users had to go down to the hotel lobby and ask front desk to turn off the firewall rules for the room's specific IP address. -At that point the user was able to access the VPN. I do not believe hotels will agree to always do this.

If the users use a dial-up connection, there isn't a problem. But using a dial-up connection is very slow especially if home base is in California, USA.

Is there a way around this so that users are always able to connect to the VPN regardless of the current internet source? I know there there must be other companies with remote users that travel and need access to VPN. How do they do it?

any help or insites would be very appriciated.

Regards,

Ken Ngo
kngo@atrua.com

 

[bcastner]

Use IPsec?

PPTP will require not so much a port as GRE 47, and that is what is being blocked by the firewalls.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=241251

 

[hansif]

Hi all,
I'am facing a very similar problem. I have setup my Cisco Pix as an Easy VPN Server and it accepts VPN connections with Cisco VPN Clients. When a remote user attempts to connect to my PIX with dial-up it works, but when the attempt is done with a DSL line it doesn't. I think the DSL router I'm testing with is not blocking anything, but can you give extra information about GRE? Is it asking for some ports to be opened?

Thanks.

Jordi Palacios González