Firefox works here but not there?

Shnerdly · 2007-12-12 15:32:16

I hope this is in the right forum.

I'm having a problem with Firefox.

I've personally been using Arch for about 2 years now and our company has decided to switch over to it. I installed Arch on a machine at our office and everything is working well. The machine is to replace the existing Windows machine at the owners home. When he gets it home the VPN (kvpnc with the PPTP client) connects but you cant do anything with the connection but I'm sure thats a routing issue.(the tunnelIP comes up wrong) The thing that really stumps me is that Firefox works perfectly in the office but won't connect to the internet at the owners home. Konqueror works great at both locations. After I "prime" the connection with Konqueror, Firefox will work for about 3 or 4 pages and then quits again. I've been around computers since the days of the TI-99-4A and I've never encountered anything like this. I'm totally stumped.

My attempts to repair this have been to uninstall the Firefox Bon Echo and do a manual install from Mozilla.org. At that point Firefox wouldn't even open so, with the help of this forum, I found that I needed to install libstdc++5. That got the new Firefox working at the office again but when he took it home, it still had the same problem.

There are only two significant differences between the office and home. First is the subnet. The office is 192.168.1. and his home is 192.168.0. I'm told that this is required for the VPN connection. Second the office uses a netopia router which really shouldn't make any difference. Both sites are on DSL provided by Qwest.

Could the Firefox issue be a routing issue and related to the VPN issue?

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Shnerdly · 2007-12-14 14:06:41

Update:

I took the computer to my home where I have Comcast. I set my subnet to 192.168.0. I started the Arch machine and Firefox worked fine but the VPN still doesn't work.

I was mistaken in my previous post. The tunnel IP is correct. I thought the Tunnel IP was the same as the ppp0 IP. Their both coming up as their supposed to but no matter how I manipulate the settings when I connect, I can't access anything in the office.

ralvez · 2007-12-14 14:17:59

What are you using for a firewall/vpn a custom (hand written) or a ready-solution (like smoothwall and the like)?
If you connect but cannot use anything beyond the vpn connection I would suspect your vpn settings are at fault.

R.

Last edited by ralvez (2007-12-14 14:18:22)

Shnerdly · 2007-12-14 16:18:08

Thanks for the reply ralvez.

I am using the IP Cop firewall on a dedicated machine. My windows machine has no problem with the VPN but the Arch machine connects but isn't usable.

I agree that it is something in the settings. I spent about 2 hours last night trying different things. I must have logged in about 30 times but was never able to access our data base or ping any of the office machines.

I've never worked with VPN in Windows or Linux prior to 2 weeks ago so I guess I'm a noobie in this area. I saw in a post that someone loaded a "ppp-mppe module" but I haven't found any more on that. I have also been studying the wiki on the pptp-client. I've got some things to try over the weekend. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks Again

Last edited by Shnerdly (2007-12-14 16:19:28)

ralvez · 2007-12-14 22:45:18

I took a quick look at the home page of IPCop (at http://ipcop.org/index.php?module=pnWik … nVPNHowto) and looking at points 1.3 and 2.2 I wonder: are you using OpenVPN and do you have the settings as in point 2.2 in that VPN?

Note: I also noticed that the language around support for OpenVPN is a bit "vague" ... it makes me wonder if they got things really working on that end.

R.

Shnerdly · 2007-12-15 03:58:52

Sorry ralvez, I misunderstood your question. I thought you were leading to the possibility of my router at home blocking the VPN. The Router at our office that I want to connect to is a Netopia. I haven't tried to access it locally so I really don't know much about it. I'm told it uses MS-Chap and requires PPTP.

One thing I noticed on my Windows machine when it's connected is it says "MS CHAP V2". Does that mean Version 2 and if so does the Arch KVPNC support it? I don't really think thats the issue but it seemed possible.

When the client says I'm connected, I cant ping any of the office machines unless I use the following command:

ping -I ppp0 192.168.1.105

If I don't have the -I in there it doesn't work. Based on another post here that means it's a routing problem. I hope to have some time tomorrow to try the fix in the other post.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=26433

I appreciate the help. I'll post back tomorrow which ever way it goes.

Shnerdly · 2007-12-29 17:15:29

I finally got the VPN working but the Firefox issue remains. It seems to be an issue only when using the Arch box on an Actiontec DSL Modem/Router. We're going to try a different modem to verify that.

The VPN fix was hard to find but an easy fix. I was connecting fine but couldnt do anything so I found that the kvpnc has a place to run a command after the connection is established so I added:

route add -net 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev ppp0

And now it works fine. I just needed to open the 192.168.1. subnet.

Thanks for the help.

ralvez · 2007-12-29 21:29:49

Glad to hear you got it going.
I wonder if the FF browser has plugins enabled that are causing the problem. To test you can disable the plugins one at a time to see if the problems is fixed.

R.

Shnerdly · 2007-12-30 00:43:42

I'll give that a try ralvez. I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to see when I can get some more time at the owners home.

I'll let you know if it works.

I've also been posting on Majorgeeks and Mozillas forums but no results so far. Man, is the Mozilla forum slow though. I have time to get a cup of coffee waiting for pages to load. I can't imagine trying that one on dialup.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-12-12 15:32:16

Firefox works here but not there?

#2 2007-12-14 14:06:41

Re: Firefox works here but not there?

#3 2007-12-14 14:17:59

Re: Firefox works here but not there?

#4 2007-12-14 16:18:08

Re: Firefox works here but not there?

#5 2007-12-14 22:45:18

Re: Firefox works here but not there?

#6 2007-12-15 03:58:52

Re: Firefox works here but not there?

#7 2007-12-29 17:15:29

Re: Firefox works here but not there?

#8 2007-12-29 21:29:49

Re: Firefox works here but not there?

#9 2007-12-30 00:43:42

Re: Firefox works here but not there?

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