[NBLUG/talk] vpn via linksys befvp41 router

Dave Sisley dsisley at sonic.net
Sat Mar 5 07:36:18 PST 2005


On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 06:46:27PM -0800, Tim Preston wrote:
> Dave,
> 
> Well that does clearify some of the questions I had.
> 
> First the home router (yours) Has an outbound connection (port) and 
> inbound connection (port). I usually call them Lan (inside) and Wan 
> (outside). The Wan connection will connect to the internet by whatever 
> means you have (cable,dsl, etc.). The Lan connection would then connect 
> to your local machine (home network, switch, etc.).
> 
> Yes. They also assign a port number to IP traffic to help determine what 
> application needs to get the traffic. Don't worry it just gets more 
> confusing the deeper you get.
> 
> From the beginning; your home computer is connected the Lan side of 
> your router, Using the router's IP address and the given port number 
> (per your example) in the browser should take you to the router's config 
> pages. You may need to use HTTPS:, check with the usermanual. If this is 
> not working, there are some ways to verify whether you are having a 
> problem with your equipment or your configuration.
> 
> What brand of router is your home router? What kind of computer are you 
> using to connect to it? Are there other devices in the home network? Do 
> you still have regular Internet traffic?
> 
> Tim

Thanks, as always, for the help, Tim.  I need to interrupt here
though, because I can now report that I've been able to configure the
router and set it so I can see it on my home network.

Here's a recap for all you interested viewers out there:

I want to connect my little home network to the network at work.  The
work network is really a VPN connected by Linksys routers (BEFVP41,
both 'regular' flavor and version 2).  I have borrowed a spare router
(same model as all the others, this one's a version 2) and I am trying
to set it up at home. 

These routers are configured by way of a web-based interface.  My
problem so far has been that I was unable to reach the web pages in
the router to twiddle the configuration and give it the details about
the network, etc.

My difficulty stems from the way my home network is set up.  The good
news is that it's very restrictive as to who can access it from where
and what services they can access.  The bad news is that it's very
restrictive, etc... 

You are supposed to be able to take a fresh, unconfigured (factory
default) Linksys router, attach it to your computer and point a
browser at 192.168.1.1 and see the Router's web based configuration
pages.  

But that requires that your computer will allow you to talk to
something on a 192.168.1 subnet and that you don't have something else
configured with an IP address of 192.168.1.1.  Unfortunately, I just
('cleverly') switched my network to run on a subnet of 192.168.30.  I
did this so that machines talking from my home network would not
conflict with the subnets at work (but I'm getting ahead of
myself...).

So between my firewall, my routing tables and other bits of network
configuration, I was not able to reach this router as long as it was
set to run at the default IP address (192.168.1.1).  

What to do?  It was hard enough for me to get my network addresses
reset to the .30 subnet - I didn't want to have to reset it back to
.1.  If only I had a computer laying around with a 'default' network
configuration... And a light bulb went off in my head:

knoppix!

(kyle will be so proud!)

I was able to boot my laptop into knoppix with the router attached and
viola! I was able to configure the router to use an IP address of
192.168.30.1.  Now it's attached to the desktop and I can configure
the rest of the settings without knoppix.  (phew!)

I'm hoping that that was the hard part.  Now I'm awash in an alphabet
soup of IP addresses and gateways and network masks and remote secure
groups, etc.  (I suppose that's more of a 'Number Soup', but no one
makes number soup.)  I just need to tweak all the various settings
until I can see the work network - my time has been limited, so I'm
working on it when I can.  I'll let you know how it goes!

-dave.

-- 
Dave Sisley
dsisley at sonic.net
roth-sisley.net



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