Thinkpads Forum

Hi:

I'm struggling with openvpn and Access Connections. Here's the situation:

R60 WinXP Pro SP2
IBM 802.11 a/b/g mini-pci card
Access Connections 4.42
openvpn 2.0 for Windows

In AC, my primary profile has been a static address wireless connection (801.11G WPA-PSK) to my Linksys wireless router. Has worked perfectly for several years.

I Installed openvpn to enable tunneled connections to a trusted 3rd party VPN server when I am travelling and connecting via an unsecured or open router. I created a 2nd profile in AC for this purpose, and set it up as a VPN connection using the AC wizard.

I tested the VPN connection with an open router, and it seems to have worked. First the open router gave me a 192.168.x.x DHCP address (confirmed in AC), and then the openvpn GUI notified me that I had a 10.x.x.x address. I think this means I was effectively connected.

However, when I disconnected from openvpn and the 2nd AC profile, both my wireless network connections were broken. I was unable to re-connect to either of my 2 AC profiles - even a re-boot failed to fix it.

Does anyone have any idea what I can do to resolve this?

Does it work all time using wired connections. I installed Access Connections V4.42 and started having a similar problem with Juniper's Netscreen VPN. I backlevelled to V4.41 and the problems have reduced substantially (but still exist).

What I notice is that I have connection problems sometimes with wireless (and yes, adding another profile excerbates the issue), but I never have a problem with a wireless connection.

The issue manifests itself as follows: The log viewer for VPN says it is sending, but not receiving anything.

I cannot figure out why (1) Wireless and not wired? and (2) why VPN cannot read incoming packets over wireless when it can over wired?

... JDH

Thanks JDH:

In order to get my network connections working again, I did an RnR restore, and openvpn and its virtual network device are no longer on my ThinkPad. I can't test wired connections as you suggested at this time.

Interesting that you have similar VPN problems with AC 4.42 and somewhat less issues with 4.41. It makes we wonder if AC and openvpn have some compatibility bug.

Here's where I am going next: I am going to uninstall AC and setup the native WinXP networking tools before I re-install openvpn. I'll report my results back here in a day or 2.

Thanks again.

After removing Access Connections 4.42 and then installing openvpn - everything worked perfectly! Wireless, ethernet, VPN and non-VPN all work now.

I conclude that AC 4.42 is incompatible with openvpn. (The only exception is HotSpot Shield (AnchorFree), which is also apparently based on openvpn, but loads from the browser. AC didn't choke with this.)

Is there a way to send a bug ticket to Lenovo about this? When this VPN issue is resolved, I'll go back to AC without hesitation. Its ability to create and configure different connection Profiles is superior to XP's more basic feature set.

I finally figured out that just restarting the IKE services is a reasonable workaround for the medium term. If VPN appears not to work, I just restart it, and all is well. This may not work for openvpn, but does work for Juniper Netscreen. ... JDH