Problem: Today, Microsoft VPN client can be configured in two ways as discussed in this article – a) in-built VPN client b) CM based VPN client. The first method requires end user to know the VPN settings and then create a VPN connection – which needs...

Hello Customers, If you are seeing errors while establishing VPN connection using Windows in-built VPN client,  you have reached the right place. This article will help you to easily troubleshoot some of the common VPN related errors. 1) Error Code...

Hello Customers, In this blog, I will go through the steps to enable the following scenario: Let us say you have a bunch of remote application servers that should be exposed to Internet only after routing them via a central server (which does accounting...

Hello All, in this blog, I will discuss how to configure a "Network Load Balancing Cluster" of vpn servers to ensure high availability and scalability of vpn service. For information about "Network Load Balancing (NLB)" feature in "Windows Server 2008...

Hello Customers, If you are wondering, when will Forefront based VPN server be available on Windows server 2008 – specifically when will Forefront VPN server support SSTP – which is the VPN tunnel that was added in Windows server 2008/Vista SP1 that...

Hello Friends, In my previous posting related to VPN tunnel selection , I discussed various scenarios in which you need to install a certificate on the VPN server. To summarize this requirement in a nutshell: except PPTP tunnel, for all the other tunnel...

Hello All, In this blog, I will discuss how to load balance SSTP based VPN servers using a F5 BIGIP SSL load balancer. Lets look at the deployment scenario first: You are having a pool of RRAS based VPN servers hosted behind F5 BIGIP load balancer...

Hello Friends, As you know – Windows7 RC is out and we will like to hear back from you ! In Windows7, we did couple of changes on the remote access client that includes dialup, broadband (aka PPPoE) and VPN scenarios. Windows7 brings in simpler connectivity...

Hello Folks, By now all of you must have heard about the formal release of W7 RC. In case you don’t have it already here is the link from where you can download the RC bits http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx In RC the...

When you upgrade your computer from an older version of Windows to Windows® 7 or Windows Server® 2008 R2, your 3rd-party virtual private network (VPN) client programs might not work. As Windows evolves, sometimes changes to the underlying infrastructure...

In W7 the CMAK wizard can be used to create CM profiles that can run on both Vista and W7 machines (a separate profile is still required for XP). When creating the profile if a VPN strategy or authentication protocol is specified which is not supported...

Hello Customers, In this post, I will go through the steps to configure to deploy Network Policy Server (NPS) based RADIUS server to authenticate and authorize the remote access connections coming from RRAS based VPN server. I will try to go through different...

Hello Customers, In this post, I will go through the steps to configure to deploy RRAS as a VPN server. I will try to go through different configuration scenarios in order to point you to various configuration options in RRAS server role. However for...

Hello Customers, In my last few articles , I discussed about the design guidelines to consider before deploying  a remote access solution. In the next few articles, I will go through the steps to configure the various components  of the remote...

Hello Customers, In this post, I will highlight on various placement requirements related to RAS server. 5. 1 NAT Routers A VPN server machine can sit behind a NAT router as long as following requirements are met: For SSTP, NAT port redirection or bi...

Hello Customers, In this post, I will walk through some aspects on IP addressing, routing and name resolution related design guidelines. 4. 1 IP Addressing The VPN client machine will have minimum two IP addresses – one that it gets from ISP through which...

Hello Customers, In this post, I will walk through the most important topic – which authentication protocol, VPN tunnel to use, how to authorize access of your VPN users. Lets have a look: 3. 1 User Authentication The remote access user is authenticated...

Hello Customers, In this post, I will walk through the different ways in which you can enable VPN functionality on the remote access devices (desktops, laptops used by your remote access users). Lets look at the various choices: 2.1 Operating Systems...

Hello Customers, In last few releases, we have added plenty of “cool” features in RAS – like NAP based health check, SSTP based SSL tunnel, IPv6 support in Vista SP1/WS08 and IKEv2 based IPSec tunnel in Windows 7/WS08 R2. As a result, we have seen a lot...

As the usage of non-English languages in usernames becomes more and more popular it is important to use the right kind of format for the characters so that the entire character set in these international languages is correctly represented. In Vista/LH...

Hello Customers, As I wrote in this blog, there are four types of VPN tunnel supported by Windows 7 based VPN clients. In this blog I will focus on following things: how do you configure tunnel types on the client, how to decide on the tunnel type...

Hi Folks, Very soon Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 will be released and it is very exciting that beta version of these new operating system is available for public download. So, go ahead and start using it and provide your valuable feedback to...

Hi Folks, Our team member Samir Jain has posted a nice blog on how you should decide which tunnel to use/deploy for your scenario. The details for the same are given at which tunnel to use . In this blog, I would like to understand further on a...

Hello Customers, A lot of you have requested directly or through the field channels about performance results of RRAS for different VPN tunnel types – specifically SSTP. I am writing this blog to share the results for the tests done internally by...

Folks, The deployment guide for VPN Reconnect is now available at http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/9/0/890C2C54-EE49-4743-A5B0-1F3AD7C36721/Step-by-Step_Deploy_Remote_Access_with_VPN_Reconnect.doc The guide covers the various requirements...