Topic: VPN Connection problem

[Mark Baumann-Erb]

I have SME 5.5 up and running in server-gateway mode and am having difficulties getting a remote user logged onto the network via a VPN connection.  She has a Windows 2000 (service pack 3) system and whenever she attempts to establish a VPN connection she receives an error: "781 - Encryption failed because no valid certificate was found" and on the server side I do not see any activity from the pptpd process in the messages log file.  She has attempted to make this connection via her cable modem and alos via AOL dial-up (just to make sure her cable modem operator wasn't killing the VPN connection.)  I have been able to dial-out (using Compuserve 2000) and establish a VPN connection using her login information so I do not believe it is really a server-side issue, but I am at a loss.  Also, she is able to access the webmail portal using https, so I believe she has the proper SSL certificates.  Can anybody give me any hints at what to look at?

Thanks,
Mark

[Charlie Brady]

Mark Baumann-Erb wrote:
>
> I have SME 5.5 up and running in server-gateway mode and am
> having difficulties getting a remote user logged onto the
> network via a VPN connection.  She has a Windows 2000
> (service pack 3) system and whenever she attempts to
> establish a VPN connection she receives an error: "781 -
> Encryption failed because no valid certificate was found" and
> on the server side I do not see any activity from the pptpd
> process in the messages log file.
...
> Can anybody give me any hints
> at what to look at?

I suspect you are attempting an IPSEC VPN connection, not PPTP. I'm not aware of any use of certificates for PPTP connections.

Charlie

[Mark Baumann-Erb]

Charlie,

Thanks for the suggestion, it appears that her system was attempting to use Microsoft's L2TP protocol.  When she changed the type of VPN server to PPTP it worked.

Mark

PS - I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out why she was getting a 678: THERE was no answer error after fixing the protocol.  That turned out to be because the ZoneAlarm firewall software was blocking port 1723.  Just wanted to share that so hopefully someone else could save some time.