[Networking] veletron:
VPN

Hi

I never, ever managed to get my XDA IIs (Blue Angel) to bring up a VPN over wifi. It would work over GPRS, but pocket hosts was required.

On windows mobile, the vpn becomes the default route. Some bozo @ MS has decided that there is no internet connectivity at the other end of the vpn tunnel, so they think they need to drop the vpn when the user requires access to the internet propper.

Unfortunately, another bozo (possibly same bozo?!) decided that intranet (vpn) urls dont have periods (.) in them, and thus any url with a period must be an internet url (so drop vpn!).

This unfortunately means that all IP addresses are considered internet rather than intranet ips cause they have periods, so vpn gets dropped.

There is an 'exceptions' button under Connections-->advanced tab, here you can enter addresses that you wish to be interpreted as intranet rather than internet addresses. **You cannot add IPs here** IPs are always internet, not intranet !! Bloody MS.

Enter pocket hosts. Adding an entry to pocket hosts to link ip 192.168.1.1 to MY_BOX means that when you enter http://MY_BOX, windows mobile sees no period and thus does not drop the vpn --> Hurray!!

I think you can also add addresses with periods to pocket hosts, but you will also need to add these to the exceptions list in connections.

--

On WM2003 (blue angel in my case), it was possible to get 'connect to vpn' links to appear on the bubble that appears when you tab the aerial. With wifi, this option only appeared in the bubble if the wifi card in the device was set to 'Internet' rather than 'work' additionally, if it is set to 'internet' and not work, then it is not possible to connect to other ips in the same subnet (i.e local lan machines). Unfortunately, even though this link appeared, clicking it would always fail to connect the ruddy vpn. Likewise, if you had wifi connected you could goto the vpn settings, tap and hold and select 'connect' and it would always fail to connect.

To change between work and internet for your wireless card, choose Settings, connections, network cards, network adapters tab, and change the pull down.

As far as I know, on WM2003, VPN only ever worked successfully over a GPRS connection.

On WM5 (Universal) things have changed somewhat. Links to the VPN connections will never appear in the 'connectivity' bubble that you see when you tap the aerial icon(s). In order to connect the vpn on WM2005, it seems that you *must* head to the vpn settings, tap and hold the VPN and select 'connect'

The good news is that this *does* now work over wifi. Your wifi network adapter should be set to connect to 'work' otherwise you cant see the local resources. I dont know if WM2005 is sensible enough to realise that accesses to IPs in the same subnet dont need to be sent over the vpn? Connect your wifi first, then your VPN, if you connect the vpn on its own then it will start a 3G/GPRS connection even if wifi is available (but just not connected).

To connect over 3G/GPRS, you'll have to drop any wifi connection, and connect to 3G/GPRS, then head to the vpn settings tap and hold the vpn connection and select connect. If you select connect when no wifi/gprs/3G connection is active then it will try and connect to gprs/3G before bringing up the vpn.

Pretty crude to have to use the settings dialogue to initiate a connection if you ask me. But it does work :-) Perhaps someone else knows better, but this works for me.

The only thing I have defined under 'My Work Network' is 2 VPN servers. Perhaps if you duplicate the modems from 'My ISP' then you'll get an easier method to connect. The only things I have under 'My ISP' are a 3G/GPRS connection and a CSD connection.

** Note though - that you will need pocket hosts **

Using the above, I can TS into my test box @ work, start windbg and see how my drivers are doing under stress testing!! Neat!

Nigel