Topic: Starting vpn to sme GRE - Protocol not available

[olle]

Problem: vpn connection cant establish sometimes.
Platform: Duron 1000, Celeron 1100
Soft: e-smith 5.6 and e-smith 6.0
Data: allways backed to desktop and restored from

I think problem must go with data i packed allways and restore back when I install fresh sme. Or is problem in my ISP. Sometimes i can connect, allmost nope.
Any ideas?

Log is there:
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: MGR: Launching /usr/sbin/pptpctrl to handle client
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: local address = 192.168.5.1
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: remote address = 192.168.5.226
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: pppd speed = 460800
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: pppd options file = /etc/ppp/options.pptpd
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Client 213.219.69.182 control connection started
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Received PPTP Control Message (type: 1)
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Made a START CTRL CONN RPLY packet
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: I wrote 156 bytes to the client.
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Sent packet to client
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Received PPTP Control Message (type: 7)
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Set parameters to 1525 maxbps, 64 window size
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Made a OUT CALL RPLY packet
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Starting call (launching pppd, opening GRE)
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: pty_fd = 5
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: tty_fd = 6
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: I wrote 32 bytes to the client.
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Sent packet to client
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4292]: CTRL (PPPD Launcher): Connection speed = 460800
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4292]: CTRL (PPPD Launcher): local address = 192.168.5.1
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4292]: CTRL (PPPD Launcher): remote address = 192.168.5.226
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pppd[4292]: pppd 2.4.2b1 started by root, uid 0
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pppd[4292]: Starting negotiation on /dev/pts/0
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: GRE: read(fd=6,buffer=80559a0,len=8260) from network failed: status = -1 error = Protocol not available
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: GRE read or PTY write failed (gre,pty)=(6,5)
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Client 213.219.69.182 control connection finished
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[4291]: CTRL: Exiting now
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pptpd[2437]: MGR: Reaped child 4291
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pppd[4292]: Modem hangup
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pppd[4292]: Connection terminated.
Jan 24 19:45:24 grill pppd[4292]: Exit.

____________________
Problem is very big and bad for me. It is several months now when it's problem first time was.
olle at paalalinn dot com

[shmeg]

having exactly the same problem on SME 6.01

server has been isntalled for several months all workign well and reliably. Suddenly 2 server on the same day started exhibiting same problem.

Protocol not available problem. Wondering in pinholing the firewal might work to test if it is a masq/firewall issue?

Any other resolutions people can come up with would be appreciated

[smeghead]

Check the MTU on your router (if you have one) - recently found that changing from 1492 to 1500 stabilises PPTP VPN's.  Looks like ISP's must be doing some upgrading/tweaking of their systems that then require this of us.

HTH

[shmeg]

No luck with the MTU
Log file is complaining of 'protocol not available' which is almost like the firewall is blocking?
Might pinhole port 47 and see what happens

[shmeg]

pinholed port 47
this fixed it
but then on the next reconnect it failed again
I suggest that reconfiguring masq cleared a locked tunnel or something?

got me stumped

[jackl]

Guys,
GRE is protocol 47 which is a different than tcp/ip port 47. Smeghead pointed me to this article in another post it may of some help, I now know more of the theory but still can't resolve this problem
http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/howto-diagnosis.phtml

[shmeg]

I saw in another post that turning off the pptpd service in egress server (outgoing) solved the problem. While I was testign this workaround I found that the pptpd service had actually locked up and couldn't be shut down.
I disabled the service int he e-smith config database and rebooted. Problem solved.

So conclusions.
Because the PPTPD server you are trying to connect to reports that the GRE protocol is missing. I suggest that it must be getting hijacked by the SME server in front of the requesting client.

So since we are now int he right area i will leave it up to much smarter people to determine why that would be.

credit goes to pistonpilot in this post for the workaround.
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=25781.msg104837#msg104837