Lupu 5.1.0 can't connect to some VPN

[typhoon71]

I'm using lupu 5.10 on a laptop (wich has xp on it, for now). It detects the wireless chip right (b43xx), it connects to the AP, lets me navigate on inet, connection is really stable, and basically works great.

My issue started when checking if I was able to connect to a VPN: I've discovered that there are IP I can't see at all while on puppy, while on xp I can reach them (IP, user, pwd et voillà).

Since I can't ping the IP of the vpn server I want to connect to, I don't think it's the VPN "application" fault, more like a DNS issue.
In fact, I can ping the router IP (both have public IPs).

Other distros can ping or connect to the server, but are too -fat- for my old lappy.

I've tried installing Pwireless2, but that didn't help (well, it's nice to have profiles and such, so no harm done).

The DHCP is set autonatically to the AP IP, so I was wondering if maybe, setting it to something -fixed- will solve it.

[tempestuous]

You would be aware, no doubt, that there are different implementations of VPN.
PPTP, OpenVPN and CiscoVPN have all been successfully used with Puppy.
Your problem probably relates to the configuration requirements of your particular VPN method, and a forum search for the relevant VPN type will likely provide your answer.

[Aitch]

typhoon71

Try using the advanced settings in the network setup, instead of DHCP, and set your router/gateway IP, give the puppybox a suitable IP a few numbers up from that, e.g gateway 192.168.2.1, Puppy 192.168.2.5, or similar [get details from windoze ipconfig]

You may also have success using your ISPs DNS if you know them, or openDNS if not

208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 are OpenDNS

Save and reboot, good luck

I've just provided a link elsewhere [myLUG] for Tinc, an open source VPN client for linux, its only about 500k...

Might be worth a look for puppy?

http://www.tinc-vpn.org/

I'm also discussing something similar with jemimah

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=59429

Sorry, cross edit

Aitch

[typhoon71]

Thanks for answering.

I don't think the issue is with the VPN itself (eh, I sure do now there are more than one type, PPTP type here), cause even doing a "simple" ping to the server bublic IP has 100% loss (the strange thing is, I can ping the router IP, and the server should be visible, as it is if I ping it frome the original os of that laptop, win XP).

So I suppose that I first need to be able to see the server before trying to open a VPN connection (PPTP access here), and I was asking help for that, since I can't figure what it is that is preventing me to ping it.

Anyway, thanks for the VPN clients, I'll be sure to try them out (especially if I can save profiles).

[Aitch]

see edit

Aitch

[tempestuous]

The ping command works in Puppy as it does in any other Linux distribution ... although Puppy's firewall might be on?

even doing a "simple" ping to the server bublic IP has 100% loss (the strange thing is, I can ping the router IP, and the server should be visible, as it is if I ping it frome the original os of that laptop, win XP).

Well I'm no expert on MPPE-PPTP VPN, but it's feasible that the VPN server might only be visible from inside the VPN tunnel, and maybe Windows handles this automatically?

A PPTP VPN client gui for Puppy is gpptp -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=41929

I've just provided a link elsewhere [myLUG] for Tinc

The Tinc client application is only useful if you're connecting to a Tinc VPN server.
It's completely useless for PPTP VPN connections.

[typhoon71]

@Aitch: Thanks, I'll try to set up a static IP like that.

@tempestuous: if I ping the server, it should be visible, even before creation of the VPN, since I'm using its public IP (I ping it in XP before VPN too,... maybe, I'll redo it to be sure.).
Thanks for pointing out the Tinc limit for PPTP, much appreciated. gpptp should be already included in lupu5.10.

[typhoon71]

Ok, I was wrong.

Indeed I can't ping the server IP before starting the VPN, and changing DNS won't solve that.

I'll search around for gpptp help, since the issue seems to be there. I hope I'll find relevant info (so far, someone got same message from gpptp, "exit with zero"), I'll dig later in the weekend.

Thanks and sorry for the trouble.

[tempestuous]

Since you seem to be comfortable with the commandline, you could set up your PPTP VPN connection manually, as I did back in 2006 -
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 2140#42140
The only difference with modern Puppies is that the names of the modules have changed in some cases. I just checked in Puppy 5.1 now, and these are the correct modules to load -

Code: Select all

modprobe ppp_generic
modprobe ppp_mppe
modprobe bsd_comp ## not sure if this one is necessary
modprobe sha1_generic
modprobe ppp_async
modprobe ppp_deflate
modprobe ppp_synctty

then proceed with the older instructions.
You will see that Puppy 5.1's /etc/modules.conf already contains the necessary line: "alias ppp-compress-18 ppp_mppe"

[typhoon71]

Thanks for the commands, I'll try them at home.