How to setup VPN Client in Microsoft 08 R2

Question

Our third party IT provider left us. We need to get a VPN connection setup with a client as soon as possible. I am mostly a software guy and networking is beyond my scope. We have been provided the Peer IP address and the NAT of the local machine we will be hitting on their end. We were also sent a PSK but no other credentials (they might send when we are ready to test I guess).

Whats the best tutorial to get the job done. They provided no specs on their end and we need to accomplish this connection as soon as possible. Is it not as simple as opening the IP on our firewall and creating a new network connection using the VPN option?

Answer 1

What type of VPN connection is important to the ports that you need to open on the firewall. Once that's determined you can create the VPN type in the new network option as you describe. If you don't want to worry about the autoconfig - choose "don't connect now" and go to the VPN properties. Under the "Security" tab select the appropriate VPN type (since you said PSK I'm assuming that would be L2TP) and authentication options that were provided. From there you should be able to connect.

For your firewall, and L2TP you'd probably want the following ports open:

• UDP 4500 (IPSEC NAT-T)
• UDP 1701 (L2TP traffic)
• UDP 500 (IKE)

For PPTP the following need opened:

• TCP 1723
• IP Protocol 47