Funny VPN/Router screw-up - ideas?

[mikek]

Having searched the boards here, this seems most appropriate place to ask for advice -but please bounce me to another forum if more appropriate.

This funny thing happened and it is worrying me – and I can’t explain it. Router is D-Link DSL G624T about two months old. Worked fine till now. Needed a couple of reboots over that time….but nothing too out of the ordinary.

This morning, router working fine, and was using my work Thinkpad (ie belongs to my firm and screwed down so us serfs can’t improve the (sub) standard build that we’re expected to work with) to pick a few things off the net for work. Then I needed to connect to my work’s network via VPN. I do this most days, and usually several times a day – so I have already done this probably hundreds of times since I got the router.

But at this point the VPN client couldn’t ping my company’s VPN server…. I then found out that the router had locked up and nothing was happening. So I rebooted the router (ie power off cycle), and everything looked OK, checked things out for 5 mins, then tried the VPN connexion again, and again the router had crashed. Tried this cycle four more times to prove that it was VPN initiation by my work lap top that was crashing the router.

Now all seems OK following reboot of laptop. So… was there some corruption in the VPN service in the laptop that was crashing the router? Can there be another explanation?

I was on the point of taking the router back for a refund/replacement before I thought it worth trying a reboot of my laptop.

Surely this router shouldn’t be so flaky that some corrupt VPN traffic can bring it down? Any views? Advice? All welcome even if only to further my understanding of all this.

[joester]

What was D-Link's response?

[mikek]

Haven't tried D-Link... on basis of past experience I didn't expect to get a particularly illuminating response... I was hopeful that someone on this forum might have some deep knowledge!

[mikek]

D-Link's advice is that all sorts of things can screw up routers (news to me!) and that I should reflash the firmware.... not hugely helpful. Not sure I'll bother.
Any thoughts?

[jdhurst]

VPN's are exceedingly tricky in production. That is by design and that is to keep the tunnel secure. Routers can prevent tunnels from operating and so I would believe router problem before a client problem (although I don't rule out a client VPN software issue).

I would re-boot all your machines from a cold start including the router. If all is well, it was probably a temporary router fault (my Netopia needs re-booting on occassion (about quarterly)) and I would ignore it.

Before you re-flash the firmware, make sure there is a way back if need be. The venerable Linksys WRT54G up to Ver. 4 will work with Juniper's Netscreen ipSec Remote VPN software. Ver. 5 and 6 will not because LinkSys changed the operating system. I have clients who have had to exchange their new Linksys routers for Netopia, Belkin or other to be able to work.
... JD Hurst