Topic: pptp server and windows network

[MrHuge]

Hello all,

At my work I have a network with windows pc's (192.168.112.0).
In this network there is an NT server (PDC) with a WINS server (192.168.112.1).
In this network I also have an SME 5.5 server (192.168.112.6).
On the SME server I have enabled PPTP access so I can access the network at my work from my home via a VPN connection.
The PPTP server is working fine, I can ping every host on the 192.168.112.0 network by IP address.
The problem is, that I can't ping to hostnames (ie MANGO).
I have already configured the PPTP server to send 192.168.112.1 as WINS server to the client, but that doesn't help.
I also tried enabling the NETBIOS and WINS ports in the input chain (ipchains), and that didn't help either.

Any ideas?

[Ray Mitchell]

I don't understand the technical reasons why, but I did read elswhere in these forums that you cannot connect using names, but only using  IP's. I conect to PC's on remote network using IP's quite OK.
Regards
Ray Mitchell

[schotie]

hmm interessant...

the problem is that your pc at home doesnt know the ip addresses.. Fill out the HOST on your home PC and put in the hostnames and addresses.
You will then be able to ping the names.....

[MrHuge]

Filling in the HOSTS file is not an option, because we use DHCP in our internal network.
So what I want to do is to make it possible that PPTP clients can resolve hostnames on the internal network not only by DNS, but also by WINS/NETBIOS.

[Charlie Brady]

MrHuge wrote:
>
> Filling in the HOSTS file is not an option, because we use
> DHCP in our internal network.
> So what I want to do is to make it possible that PPTP clients
> can resolve hostnames on the internal network not only by
> DNS, but also by WINS/NETBIOS.

Then you'll need to obtain PPTP clients which resolve names via WINS/NETBIOS, won't you?

OTOH, if you are happy enough to have PPTP clients which only use DNS, but want them to be able to find your hosts, then use the hostnames panel and assign fixed IPs and names for each of your hosts, by filling in theMAC address. Be sure to use IP addresses ouside your dynamically assigned range.

Charlie

[MrHuge]

I forgot to mention that the DHCP server is running on the PDC (which is the NT machine on 192.168.112.1).

Anyway, it occurs very often that we have computers in the network which we prepare for customers (install our software on it, test the systems). This is particularly why we installed the DHCP server. Those 'dynamic' hosts must also be 'resolvable' by PPTP clients, so putting each separate host in the network in a DHCP database by MAC address is not an option.

Basicly, my question is how must I configure the SME server to enable PPTP clients to resolve hostnames using WINS/NETBIOS, or is that just not possible?

[Luciano Terra]

i think that you must set resolve order or add every host to dns (or use wins host facility from windows nt dns to integrate than)....

[Charlie Brady]

MrHuge wrote:

> Basicly, my question is how must I configure the SME server
> to enable PPTP clients to resolve hostnames using
> WINS/NETBIOS, or is that just not possible?

How could the server change the capabilities or configuration of the clients? So no, as far as I know, it is not possible.

OTOH, I believe that someone made a contrib to allow dynamic DNS update from DHCP clients.

Charlie

[MrHuge]

The clients are windows clients, so they already have the capability of resolving hostnames using WINS/NETBIOS. I also configured PPTPD to send 192.168.112.1 to the clients as DNS server and WINS server (see my options.pptpd below).
This doesn't help though.
Could it be that I have to change the ipchains configuration to allow WINS/NETBIOS ports/protocols?

My /etc/ppp/options.pptpd
auth
+chapms-v2
chapms-strip-domain
domain router.aac
# Tell ip-up and ip-down who is running them
ipparam pptpd
nodeflate
nobsdcomp
mppe-128
mppe-stateless
require-mppe
require-mppe-stateless
ms-wins 192.168.112.1
ms-dns 192.168.112.1
# Server is not domain master - no ms-wins value set
name sleedoorn
netmask 255.255.255.0
proxyarp
require-chap