Topic: Q: VPN (PPTP) connections -> cause reboot of SME server ?

[tim-chipman]

Hi, I'm curious if anyone has this issue / has ever observed this behaviour:  SME server, latest install and fully up-to-date with patching.  In the last 2 weeks we have 3+ confirmed cases where a user connects via VPN (PPTP, Windows XP clients) and the SME server reboots / hangs uncleanly.

This requires a physical power-cycle on the SME server to get it operating again.

Given that the system has a primary role as fileserver, and secondary role of VPN server - I'm beginning to feel like disabling VPN on this, deploy a different virtual appliance (IPCOP?) to address VPN requirements, and keep things 'simple'.  Of course, if there was an 'easy' way to fix this issue, I would prefer to not have more virtual servers to manage, but .. I'm also reluctant to have this system crashing like this and disrupting operations.

I'm simply wondering if anyone else has ever seen this kind of issue before / or if there are suggested issues to investigate / workaround that I might try.

Many thanks for comments / assistance,


--Tim Chipman

[Stefano]

hi

first of all, welcome here

you should open a bug for this, giving as much info as possible.

anyway, looks like a kernel panic problem.. did you test your ram?

Stefano

[dmcguire]

I had intermittent problems with PPTP on one of my SME networks, but not so serious as server restarts. Mine would sometimes hang or fail to connect for no apparent reason. I also found PPTP was sometimes very slow. Anyway, I now use Untangle on a Dell SC440 as an OpenVPN/Gateway/UTM box on that network, and run the SME Server behind that in server only mode. I'm sure untangle could be run as a VM in SME server, but in this case having two boxes was the easiest solution.

I normally use WinSCP for remote access to my SME boxes now becuase I prefer that. Change the port in the Remote Access panel from 22 to some random number, and it cuts down the log noise.

Hope that helps.