[pptp-server] name-resolution doesn't work across VPN

[Jeff Fitzsimons]

Hi all,

This is the first installment of my multi-part whinefest.  :-)  I've been
banging my head over this for over a week.

My VPN client is a Win2k box.  Its only network connection talks to a
dedicated NIC in the server (ie the VPN is NOT established over the
Internet).  It connects to the Linux pptpd server fine.  At that point the
client can ping happily away to raw IP addresses both inside and outside the
local network.  However, any time I try to ping a machine name (i.e. NOT an
IP address) that's not in the lmhosts file, it fails with an "unknown host".

At the moment I have my remoteip and localip (pptpd.conf) set to a
192.168.7.x subnet with MASQ and forwarding explicitly set.  I've also tried
having them set to the same 192.168.0.x subnet that the local network uses,
and it didn't change the behavior.

The Linux box is also a WINS server and ms-wins is set appropriately in the
pptpd.conf file.  I don't think WINS comes into play here though.

All the clients on the local network (192.168.0.x) are masq'd and working
fine.

I'm running pptpd (1.0.1-1) and ipchains (1.3.10-7) on a RedHat Linux
(kernel 2.4.2-2) box.

Incidentally, in case you're wondering WHY I want to resolve DNS names
across the VPN, it's because I'm using it to restrict access from an 802.11b
wireless hub.  So, the only way to get on the network & see the Internet
from an 802.11b machine is to have a valid VPN account.  I realize it's not
normal to want to resolve domain names over a VPN, but I think it's a key to
some other problems I'm having...

Any help would be _greatly_ appreciated!

Jeff



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