EVDO with VPN with MBP with 640 card - FIXED

chmtoy · EVDO Newbie Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 10

This issue is now resolved, see page 3 for the fix.

I just received my card and it's working great. I can connect with no issues.
But, when I try to connect via my Cisco VPN, I am running the universal version 4.9, I get the error:
"Error 51: Unable to communicate with the VPN subsystem.
Please make sure that you have at least on e network interface taht is currently active and has an IP address and start this application again."

That makes sense since I have neither the wireless or internal NIC turned on. But the VPN does not seem to "recognize" the EVDO card.

Has anyone run into this issue and have a workaround?

If I can't connect to work, this card is pretty useless as I already have a Blackberry. I need it to access the internal network and email attachments.

chmtoy · EVDO Newbie Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 10

I am using VZAccess.
I just tried connecting from the XP side using BootCamp, and I was able to connect using my VPN access without problems.
I obviously am trying to "ween" myself off from the XP side Smile

chmtoy · EVDO Newbie Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 10

to answer your other question, it did not matter which I started first.
If I am not connected via either hard wired or wireless, I can't start the VPN client.
If I am connected, I can start the VPN client, disconnect, then start the broadband. But when I try to connect via VPN, nothing happens since the original connection was lost.

jackrodgers · EVDO Addict Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 1127

Using OS X try this (You may not need the Cisco software):

Open Internet Connect.
Click on the VPN icon.

Fill in the data and click connect.

You can connect to a Cisco router using this method, at least the one a client uses. I am not familiar with any other Cisco routers or software.

It was so easy that the Windows consultant almost switched to Mac on the spot.

Click Show VPN status in menu bar and you can turn vpn on and off as you need it from the menu bar. I added a dialog in my Filemaker file to remind me to do this when I connect over the internet.

chmtoy · EVDO Newbie Joined: 12 Aug 2006 Posts: 10

I guess I should be more explicit in my instructions Shocked

I am running a VPN client because it is setup for token authentication.

So, I'll try to see if I can use the builtin one, but I was hoping that there was a "trick" that could be done for the VPN client to realize that I am connected to the internet regardless of it is via wireless or hard wired, but actually via my EVDO wireless card.

Wixer · EVDO Newbie Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 2

You need to unload and reload your Cisco kernal extensions.

You need to have the admin pw to do this, but here's the 2 commands to run from a terminal window:

treadwell521 · EVDO Newbie Joined: 22 Dec 2005 Posts: 2

I'm having the same issue and none of these fix it. I actually work at Cisco, so I am having someone there look into it too.

CdtDelta · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 16

Michael · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 1:23 pm Post subject:

Hello,

Just to add more info.

A customer of ours is having the same problem.

We tried VZAccess 3.0.1. I had him uninstall VZAccess and try the native 10.4.7 drivers and still have a problem.
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CdtDelta · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 16

I was playing around with it at work, and I took a better look at the log files being generated. When I connect over TCP (to port 50000 which is what my company uses), the client never seems to be able to connect to that port on the other end. I can telnet to the port however from my machine.
If I use UDP, I get messages that the port is already in use (which is odd because I didn't have any other VPN clients running).

cnn · EVDO Newbie Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 4

Same problem here: We are unable to establish an ipSEC VPN Connection while using Verizon EVDO for connectivity.

Other types of connectivity using the card seems to work fine, ie: http, telnet and ping.

Other words, I can ping the server and telnet into it, without issues, using the card. But I can not establish the IPSEC connection.

btw- I'm using the V640 and a 2.16GHz Macbook Pro with OSX 10.4.7, have tried both OSX native drivers and VZAccess.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Any help is GREATLY appreciated.
_________________
-David

cnn · EVDO Newbie Joined: 16 Aug 2006 Posts: 4

Based on our best efforts it appears to be related to the way Verizon creates the secondary ethernet interface over ther PPP tunnel. The Cisco client is attempting to identify or talk over that interface from the Cisco logs. (It may be named en2 in your OSX network port configurations or similar)

Excerpt from cisco log:
3 16:44:23.358 08/14/2006 Sev=Info/4 CM/0x43100004
Establish secure connection using Ethernet

It seems that the Verizon card/software is not passing the packets from the Cisco client to the PPP stack for some reason.
_________________
-David

Michael · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:05 pm Post subject:

I wonder if a quick and dirty work around is to use the built-in Internet sharing to share Ethernet traffic to "Ethernet 2".
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jackrodgers · EVDO Addict Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 1127

I noticed something about the NIC in computers when using Filemaker 8 the other day. It has a functin for grabbing the NIC number of the client computer and I use this as a fixed value for identifying the work station.

IBM desktops identify the NIC with 8 two character sets. My MacBook uses 16 two character sets and oddly when I use Windows XP I get 32 two character sets for the NIC address. I have not double checked this but it did occur yesterday.

I wonder if this could lead to an answer about the MacBook VPN problem?

If anyone is interested I will double check this info tonight or tomorrow.

terrylwhite · EVDO Newbie Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 8

Just to jump in here, I'm having the same issue.
MacBook Pro 15" 2.16GHZ
V640
Cisco client trying to connect on TCP port 10000
Using the native 10.4.7 drivers.

VPN connects no problem in Windows under Boot Camp with the V640. So the problem seems to be in the Mac client.