OSX Server 10.4 + VPN Tracker

I am having problems setting up a vpn connection. I have VPN Tracker but the machine I want to get to on my LAN (behind the router - which is another set of problems!) is running OSX Server. Do I ignore the vpn settings since they are references to IPSec/L2TP, or do I have to switch off the server firewall? I find this very unclear. Also, is there an aternative to using Tracker? Can't I simply use the built-in vpn capability of OSX?

I am having problems setting up a vpn connection.
VPN is a screaming bag of cats. What one vendor calls VPN
may not be what another vendor calls it.
I have VPN Tracker but the machine I want to get to on
my LAN (behind the router - which is another set of
problems!) is running OSX Server.
If you are trying to connect from a Mac to OS X server,
VPN Tracker is not needed to establish a VPN tunnel. The
existing software that comes with the system can be used.
In the Finder's Help menu ("Mac Help"), open the Help Viewer
and search for VPN. Look at the entry entitled "Setting up
a connection to a Virtual Private Network".
The main reason to use VPN Tracker is if you have a
perimeter hardware firewall / VPN appliance. For example,
our users connect to our SonicWALL using VPN Tracker, and it
works great. We terminate the tunnel on the LAN side of the
SonicWALL so that the remote client computers sit through
the tunnel on the LAN The advantage that Equinux brings is
that they keep it up to date as Apple and SonicWALL (and
other VPN firewall vendors) make changes, and they provide
good setup guides. For the interoperability list, see
http://equinux.com/us/products/vpntracker/interoperability.html
Do I ignore the vpn settings since they are references
to IPSec/L2TP, or do I have to switch off the server
firewall?
Well, you will have to open up appropriate ports depending
on the flavor of VPN you choose. Again, it's a screaming
bag of cats. Of course, you will have to configure VPN
on the Xserve.
I find this very unclear.
Yep. It's a screaming bag of cats.
Also, is there an aternative to using Tracker? Can't I
simply use the built-in vpn capability of OSX?
To connect to an Xserve, yes. See the Help viewer article
above. You don't mention the router you are using or whether
it is using NAT. You may have NAT traversal issues.
Hope this helps,
Russ
Xserve G5 2.0 GHz 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8) Apple Hardware RAID, ATTO UL4D, Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u

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Hi everyone,
I'm stuck for a while now with a very annoying problem.
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We recently updated to 10.8 and got this problem.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5078

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i ran through those processes , and for the last one got file not found
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To run a public VPN server, you need to do the following:
1. Give the gateway either a static external address or a dynamic DNS name. In the latter case, you must run a background process to keep the DNS record up to date when your IP address changes.
2. Give the VPN server a static address on the local network.
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4. Configure any firewall in use to pass this traffic.

Set up vpn on mac osx server

What is the most common reason that I can connect to the newly created vpn locally but not remotely (over the wan)?

I have had the same problem with setting up L2TP on Mavericks after upgrade. After several failed attempts I have the following recepie.
To test this you need to have two separate networks to connect you VPN client to. One should be the same as where the server is running and the other needs to be different so that the incoming traffic to your router is coming from the outside.
I'm assuming a setup with a router and behind it a local network with an OS X server running the VPN service (vpnd daemon)
On the server
Note the local ip-adress of your server. This should preferably be static.
Install the VPN fix from apple: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1716
In the OS X Server VPN Service create a VPN profile where VPN Host Name is local ip-adress of the VPN server.
Restart the VPN service and save the configuration file.
On the router
Open ports 500, 1701 and 4500 to pass UDP traffic to the server. Make sure to activate them in the router interface.
Make a note of your routers public IP address. This should be static.
If this keeps changing you can set up a dynamic domain name (http://dyndns.org)
Optional: verify that the ports are actually open using nmap:
sudo nmap -Pn -sU XX.XX.XX.XX -p500,1701,4500
Password:
Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2014-02-14 14:21 CET
Nmap scan report for ... (XX.XX.XX.XX)
Host is up (0.012s latency).
PORT STATE SERVICE
500/udp open isakmp
1701/udp open|filtered L2TP
4500/udp open|filtered nat-t-ike
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 1.29 seconds
XX.XX.XX.XX is the public IP-adress of the router. You can also try the same on the local IP-address of the server.
On the client
Copy the configuration file and install it by double klicking on the file.
Connect the client to the same local network as the vpn-server and activate the VPN connection.
Verify that the VPN connection comes up.
Up to this point, smooth sailing.
Now change the Server address to the IP-address of the router and turn on extra logging found under Advanced. Save the new configuration.
Bring up the VPN connection again. Should work. Right?
I did not for me. The error complains about the L2TP-VPN-server not responding.
Digging deeper using the system logger I found the error
2014-02-14 14:43:31,039 racoon[60284]: IKE Packet: receive failed. (Malformed or unexpected cookie).
2014-02-14 14:43:31,039 racoon[60284]: Malformed cookie received or the initiator's cookies collide.
2014-02-14 14:43:31,172 pppd[60283]: IPSec connection failed
2014-02-14 14:43:31,172 racoon[60284]: vpn_control socket closed by peer.
2014-02-14 14:43:31,173 racoon[60284]: received disconnect all command
So it sort of works, but complains about some bad cookie.
The simple change of the IP-address apparentely generates this error.
Now change the network of the client so that it is not on the same networks as the server.
Bring up the VPN again. Now it just works.
So apparently, when the traffic is coming in from the outside the VPN connection just works.
If you change back to the local network of the server and the keep the router IP-address the error is back.
Conclusion
The conclusion is that the client used for connecting to the VPN network must be on an outside network.
In retrospect, this makes sense since we should test using an environment that reproduces the actual use case. The crux is to ensure that the client traffic is coming in from the outside.
Hope this helps.

OSX Server on a Powerbook?

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Thanks in advance for any and all thoughts.
PowerBook G4 500Mhz/1Gb Mac OS X (10.4.6) Server newbie, long-time small office Mac/Win admin

Thanks for your helpful reply - I am going to take a look at Sharepoints and see if it might be the ticket. It looks promising.
In response to your other questions:
Network setup: We have two locations, one of which would be the host location. We each have simple wifi local networks each using a Qwest dsl router, with NAT, WPA Personal, MAC listing, and SSID turned off. That's about the depth of my network security ability. I hoped that Apple might have a clear walkthrough of how to set up Server for our needs. That was as much plan as I had.
The file sharing has to be as transparent as possible, so standard Finder/Open&Save dialog operations are necessary. That's what is great about FolderShare (despite its critical reliability flaw), and why an FTP solution won't work. We just have hundreds or thousands of file operations every day, and can't take time out to manage files through another app.
Thanks also for the heads-up on configuring the fireall to accept connections from only the standard remote site(s). It would be great to be able to access it from the road as well, but if there is no way to do that without creating a significant security risk, we can live without it. (Is there any way to do so?)
Cheers,
Allen

Help for first install of macpro with osx server

Hello to all
it's my first message on this forum, i'm seeking for help because i'm kind of new with Mac systems.
I'm gonna explain the problem
So we are going to buy a mac pro and put 4*2To inside with raid 5 and osx server.
The problem is that the cost of installation of sotwre and deployement etc is really expensive.
I need to create a vpn too, this mac pro is gonna be a storage and multiple users must have acces to it. In fact this mac will be connected on the router and users will acces to it on local network then later we're gonna move from our base so the mac will be at the home of one of us and other users will have to access it from outside.
I was thinking avoyding cost of install by doing it myself.
So i've thinked that the best way to do it is by asking help to the community.
Is anyone can help me with this or tell me where i can find tutorials to do it?
I have skills but this is hard form me. The thing is that i learn fast. But i need help.
Maybe my post is not really clear i write as it comes to me, english is not my langage too.
So feel free to ask me questions or informations if you need.
In the same time i'm reading posts on the foum about this kindof installations.
Thank u so much
.anto.

Dear Marcassin
i am happy to help to your problem .
first i would say you must read the Documentation. and you should familier with Mac Os installation System.
in your Mac Server DVD you will find the schedule sheet . print that and plan your server first. it will really help full. then come and list down the all the requirements.
may be you will need more services after that.
But again again again . read that sheet and fill all the requirements. and come back or read specific captors in the Documentation.
if you want more details about the installing sachira.herath at gmail
 certified Pro 10.6/10.5

Can I use OSX Server instead of Dropbox?

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Can someone please explain how remote users get access to the OSX server and the documents on it and if there is a "syncing" option similar to Dropbox?
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Answers:
#1 Yes, if set up correctly the server can be available to everyone with Internet access.
Typically this would be via a VPN connection. One caveat–only one VPN connection can be active from a particular LAN. In other words, if two computers on the same LAN want to connect via VPN to your server, this will not work (at least it wouldn't under earlier versions of OS X).
WebDAV is a possibility but I have not had good results when using WebDAV. Access is limited to apps that support WebDAV connections (such as Pages, Numbers, and Keynote). Even then it seemed a bit problematic.
#2 Any offline documents from the server must be managed manually. In other, you must manually copy them back and forth. As Linc mentioned above, OS X Server does not offer sync functionality.

Error -36 while copying files to SMB shares but not AFP. (OSX Server APP)

Hello,
So far my transition to OSX server has been a sloppy one. I have had so many problems. I have problems with permissions about everyday. Anyhoos, here is my latest problem. Everytime (from any client computer) a computer tries to copy a file or folder to a share using SMB protocol to the osx server i get this message:
The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “File or folder name" can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)
This does NOT happen when copying the same files using AFP protocol. I using a windows box at work, (dialing in throught the VPN) it doesn't seem to have any problems dropping files either. Anyone know whats up? I have read on the site that others are experiencing problems with SMB within OSX servers. Some report that it stright doesn't work!!!!
Anyhoos, through all my problems, you guys have been VERY helpful to help me work through it. I really appreciate it!!

Just found a slight work around:
http://www.macwindows.com/TIP--Workaround-to-Mavericks-file-sharing-is-to-force- SMB.html
Several readers offered a suggestion for yesterday's report of problems with OS X 10.9 Mavericks accessing some Windows file servers and network attached storage device. Mavericks now defaults to SMB2 file sharing protocol, but a bug seems prevent OS X from using SMB1 or AFP when the server doesn't support the newer SMB2.
A workaround is to force OS X to use the old SMB1 (also known as SMB/CIFS). To do that, instead of mounting the server using the Finder, use the Connect to Server command in the Finder's Go menu. Then type in the following:
cifs://server_address (using the IP address or network name of the server)
Using smb://server_address won't work, as this will use SMB2 to access the device.
Thanks to Mario Cajina and Kevin Lepard for the suggestion.

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