Cant map network Drive over WAN VPN

[Bry Man]

Hello,

Im trying to setup a VPN with a friend who lives in another state so we can share some files. The problem (I think) isnt the VPN however because I am able to connect and there is chatter between the two machines as indicated by the status window for the VPN, But I cant ping his machine and he cannot ping mine...nor can I map a shared folder on his machine. Im not sure how to deal with WAN drive mapping using a VPN, but I tried using \\<wanip>\sharename as well as \\<VPN server IP>\sharename but neither worked, and nothing but my own shares show up with using 'net view' in the command line. I didnt try getting his machines internal network IP address because I didnt think that would work.

Things maybe relevant to the problem that could help:
-He has windows server 2003 running
-I am using Windows xp
-He says that he disabled his firewall
-I have a privileged account on his server so that I may dial in
-He can ping his VPN ip, and I can ping my VPN ip..but we cant ping eachothers
-I also have my firewall disabled

Any help is appreciated because im at a loss with my limited VPN experience.

[mjlorbet]

it is possible that even though your firewall is down that echo isn't enabled which would reply to the ping, make sure echo is enabled if you're weighting this thing in whether or not ping pongs. try having your friend set up an ftp server instead of a regular share and set the ip it's running on to his vpn ip instead of (all unasigned) and give it access of full control, turn off windows authentication too and go with just a plain old user name & password, sometimes windows authentication this won't work over wan. as far as mapping a network drive over a vpn, probably not going to work, but you could add the ftp server as a network place & save the credentials. also check the settings on the routers between you (if any) make sure that it allows echo to pass through. you could also try a service like no-ip on his machine, have him set up an account, setup the ftp to (all unasigned) for the ip, unblock port 21 (firewall if on & router, maybe even map it in the router), credentials & all that then just access the server by name, for example ftp://friends_server.no-ip.org:21. another thing to check before throwing in the towel & doing the non-vpn ftp route is to set the local machines to dmz on any installed routers.

-hope this helps

[Bry Man]

I can try what youve suggested, but the reason why we went VPN in the first place was because he also has an FTP server that he hosts a few peoples files on However, I can connect to it also but get no file listing or transfer anything to him from my end, when I can ftp to other sites and he has other people who ftp to him frequently.

[mjlorbet]

you can have him set up another ftp server on a different port if you'd like to try that, or use the credentials to redirect the ftp login to a specific folder for root on the file system

[sage45]

If he has DNS running, then you need to setup his DNS server as the primary DNS server for the VPN connector. The same with WINS.

Also, it is beneficial if you tell the connector not to use the gateway on the other end of the tunnel.

This is all accomplished (if you are using the Windows XP VPN Connector) by going to the connector in Network Connections. Right-clicking on the Connector and choosing Properties. Click on the Networking tab. Choose TCP/IP and click Properties. Click Advanced.

The option for Use gateway on remote network is on the first tab. Click on the DNS and WINS tabs respectively for their configuration.

HTH,

-saige-