[Gulliver64]

Why does Internet Connect automatically terminate a VPN/PPTP-connection after a while? With 10.1.5 and PPTP-GUI I could stay connected all day. This is the message:

Sat Aug 24 18:43:58 2002 : Terminating connection due to lack of activity.
Sat Aug 24 18:44:01 2002 : Connection terminated.

Is there a way to prevent this? Is there a way to automatically connect at startup?

Thanks in advance!

[piracy]

Originally posted by Gulliver64:
Why does Internet Connect automatically terminate a VPN/PPTP-connection after a while? With 10.1.5 and PPTP-GUI I could stay connected all day. This is the message:

Sat Aug 24 18:43:58 2002 : Terminating connection due to lack of activity.
Sat Aug 24 18:44:01 2002 : Connection terminated.

Is there a way to prevent this? Is there a way to automatically connect at startup?

Thanks in advance!

It disconnects because of, as it says, lack of activity. There's no GUI to configure things like timeout, etc., right now with the VPN client. To change this, you'll need to edit /var/db/SystemConfiguration/preferences.xml (you'll probably want to back this up before you mess with it). In this file, find the PPTP section. In that section, there will be several variables, one of which is DisconnectOnIdle. Change the '1' to a '0'. There's even other settings, like DisconnectOnLogout which, when changed to 0, allows you to stay connected even across logins and logouts. You need to reboot after you make these changes to have them take effect. You can automatically connect at startup by executing a pppd command; while connected do a 'sudo ps auxwww | grep pppd' to get an idea of the command that is being run. You can actually just duplicate that command completely (inserting the proper password of course) and have it run on startup. If you disable DisconnectOnIdle and DisconnectOnLogout, then you'll have a connection that will essentially be permanent.

[OAW]

I can't offer any suggestions on fixing your problem because I'm having one worse than yours. Namely, the VPN client simply does not work for me. I always get a "Could not negotiate a connection" error or something to that effect. I know the IP address for the VPN server is correct and it is using PPTP ... so I'm basically stuck at this point.

OAW

[piracy]

Originally posted by OAW:
I can't offer any suggestions on fixing your problem because I'm having one worse than yours. Namely, the VPN client simply does not work for me. I always get a "Could not negotiate a connection" error or something to that effect. I know the IP address for the VPN server is correct and it is using PPTP ... so I'm basically stuck at this point.

OAW

In the PPTP secton of the file I mentioned above, you may try changing the settings for CCPEnabled and IPCPCompressionVJ. I'd try CCPEnabled first. You need to reboot to have the changes take effect.

[NorthernTiger]

OAW...

One thing that initially stopped me from connecting via VPN is the domain name. If you have to login to a specific domain then in your VPN connection, login with DOMAIN\User as your user name... after I did this, I could get in...

[C.J. Moof]

Can you be sure it's the mac terminating the session, and not the remote VPN server? My VPN server has an inactivity timeout I can set, maybe the one you're connecting to is set low.

[piracy]

Originally posted by C.J. Moof:
Can you be sure it's the mac terminating the session, and not the remote VPN server? My VPN server has an inactivity timeout I can set, maybe the one you're connecting to is set low.

Yes, it's the Mac terminating the session based on the disconnect message he's seeing in the logs. There's a default timeout value that can only be set (or disabled) by modifying the settings I discussed.

[OAW]

Still no go for me. I have the correct IP address for the VPN server. I am using DOMAIN/username as the user ID and the correct password. However, I always get the same response ...

When I click the "Connect" button, the status first says "Contacting VPN Server", then it says "Negotiating", and finally I get an error message that says ...

"Could not negotiate a connection with the remote PPP server. Please verify your settings and try again."

I have tried both of Piracy's suggestions to no avail. Modifying the CCPEnabled and IPCPCompressionVJ settings and rebooting yielded the same results.

I'm running the following ...

G4 iMac 800 mhz
768 MB RAM
OS X 10.2
Cable Modem hooked to Airport Base Station
Airport Base Station hooked to G4 iMac in WAN port.
Network Settings set to "Built in Ethernet" and "DHCP"

The preferences file that Piracy pointed my too mentioned a log file, and the contents are as follows...

Mon Aug 26 22:16:12 2002 : PPTP connecting to server 'XXX.XXX.XX.XXX'
Mon Aug 26 22:16:12 2002 : PPTP connection established.
Mon Aug 26 22:16:12 2002 : Using interface ppp0
Mon Aug 26 22:16:12 2002 : Connect: ppp0 <--> socket[34:17]
Mon Aug 26 22:16:42 2002 : LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests
Mon Aug 26 22:16:42 2002 : Connection terminated.
Mon Aug 26 22:16:42 2002 : PPTP disconnecting...
Mon Aug 26 22:16:42 2002 : PPTP disconnected

If anyone has any other suggestions, please send them my way.

Thanks!

OAW