I have a Windows 7 guest running on a Windows 7 host. This guest needs to connect a vpn to a remote server. I get frequent vpn disconnects (like every 5 minutes or so) when running in the VM, however if I connect from the host, no disconnects occur.
The guest is using bridged networking, and i have a very stable cable internet connection. As I said, the disconnects do not occur if I connect to the VPN from the host.
What could be causing this?
I am using standard windows built-in VPN (L2TP I think?)
Edit: It looks like it's PPTP not L2TP. Also, I have the windows firewall turned off on both the host and guest. I have a hardware firewall in place between host and cable modem, however if that were the problem I would think it would affect the host as well.
This is truly an annoying thing. It seems to occur precisely every 9 minutes. Further, this is not something unique to this guest, this host, or this vpn host. The problem happens with other hosts, other guests, and other vpn hosts.
Are you syncing the time with the host? Try using an external NTP source and turn off all other time-sync.
Best regards,
Linjo
If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
No, i'm not. I'm not sure why time sync would affect a vpn anyways. I already sync to ntp.org
I'm using 7.1.2 by the way.
I've experiences the exact same thing, using a SonicWall VPN. I am rock solid connected from the host but the VPN loses connection on the guest after a very short number of minutes. Also using bridged.
I have duplicated this behavior on both Windows and Linux hosts, running W7 guests.
It's not just bridged. It does it with NAT as well. I was able to use the HOST connected VPN from the guest with NAT, but was not able to use authenticated resources because it was from an "untrusted domain".
Either way, there seems to be a problem with VPN's and guests.
Keeping a ping running to a peer on the remote network is a workaround for me.
Any response from VMWare?
I'm having this problem as well with 7.1.2. It seems easy enough to reproduce. Someone who's an IP geek can probably fire up Wireshark and figure out what's going on (even though the VPN traffic is encrypted).
It's just a guess, but VMware seems to be doing some sort of periodic "house keeping" that doesn't noticably effect normal TCP/IP connections but breaks VPN tunnels.
And yes, for whatever reason, the participation of VMware employees in this forum seems to have dropped way off from even where it was when 7.1.0 came out. I once had a lot of praise for VMware as a company, but the quality of both the products and support seem to be going in the wrong direction.
VMware is EMC's main cash cow these days with the margins in the storage business being horrible. And, it's just my opinion, but EMC seems to be milking the cow a little too hard. Meanwhile Virtual Box just keeps getting better and is gaining market share, and Microsoft is going to raise the bar with their Windows 8 based virtualization products. It seems like a bad time for EMC to be cutting corners trying to save money.
I'm having a similar issue. Seems to have started when I moved to Lion but not certain. VPN is standard Mac L2TP. VPN is stable unless VMWare Fusion is running Windows. Then it disconnects every 10 minutes or so. Restarting the VPN in the Mac Control Panel does not always solve the problem. Suspending and Resuming, and restarting the VPN, seems to be the only solution.
Maybe this console log will help someone suggest a solution:
There's some suggestion that this may be a generic VMware/VPN issue. I just want to throw out there that I have been using VPNs and VMware workstation for a long time (approx 18 months) on multiple guests with no VPN problems, period.
Range of WS versions: 7.0.x, 7.1.x, 8.0
Different VPN solutions: CheckPoint VPN-1, F5 SSL VPN and also standard Windows VPN.
Different guests: XP, Vista x86/x64, Win7 x86/x64.
Hosts: Win7x64.
Guest networking: Bridged.
Local router: Belkin.
~~~~~~~
I should have paid attention to how old this thread was, but still... :smileyblush: