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Cannot connect using internal MacOS High Sierra

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 1:01 am
by apexav
I setup the Softether VPN Server on a Windows 10 Pro PC at one site and i can connect via my Windows 10 Home PC from my home.

But on the same home network I cannot using my Macbook Pro running macOS High Sierra ver 10.13.4
I have tried the internal masOS client, Shimo client, NCP Secure Entry client without success.

Am I missing something special to make the Macbook connect?

Re: Cannot connect using internal MacOS High Sierra

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 12:36 pm
by cmd wh0ami
Did you try the 3rd party SoftEther Client with GUI? http://softethergui.lastgrid.com/

If your using another protocol than SoftEther, like L2TP/IPsec or OpenVPN your going to have to open ports on firewall the server is behind and map them to the server. For OpenVPN its udp 1194... For L2TP/IPsec its udp 500 and udp 4500.

If you have NAT-T enabled you shouldnt have to open up anything for SoftEther protocol. It will punch a hole for you, but that can only be accomplished by using the SoftEther Client.

Re: Cannot connect using internal MacOS High Sierra

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2018 11:13 pm
by apexav
cmd wh0ami wrote:
Tue Oct 02, 2018 12:36 pm
Did you try the 3rd party SoftEther Client with GUI? http://softethergui.lastgrid.com/

If your using another protocol than SoftEther, like L2TP/IPsec or OpenVPN your going to have to open ports on firewall the server is behind and map them to the server. For OpenVPN its udp 1194... For L2TP/IPsec its udp 500 and udp 4500.

If you have NAT-T enabled you shouldnt have to open up anything for SoftEther protocol. It will punch a hole for you, but that can only be accomplished by using the SoftEther Client.
Yes, I did try the softethergui from http://softethergui.lastgrid.com/ but without success... Do you have any advice on how to configure it further?

Why would I need to open the firewall ports if the Windows 10 PC on the same LAN connects to the Softether server but the Macbook does not? Does the macbook connect differently?

Re: Cannot connect using internal MacOS High Sierra

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 1:01 am
by cmd wh0ami
I'm just guessing here, but I would think the macbook and the vpnserver are not on the same LAN. Which means the VPN server would be behind some kind of firewall. I just spun up a High Sierra vm in VMware to take a look at the softethergui client. All the softethergui client asks for is Account Name, Server IP, Port, Virtual Hub, Username, Password, and Auth type (standard or radius)... There is no way to import vpn connections settings so I'm guessing the 3rd party softethergui is a bare bones client that doesnt support all the options of the official Mac OS CLI client, or the Windows GUI client.

Thats why you can connect on the same network with the Windows machine.

I'm guessing the softethergui client doesnt support NAT-T (nat-transversel) .which would punch a hole through what ever firewalls are between your server and client. You can test it out by disabling NAT-T in SoftEther Client on your Windows machine to see if you experience the same issue your having on the Mac. It's the little check box that says "disable nat-t" next to the box where the port number goes.

Test that and see what happens...

As long as you control the network its easy to open and map ports.

Re: Cannot connect using internal MacOS High Sierra

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 1:03 am
by apexav
Ok, so I removed all of the VPN clients that I had installed and re-run the SoftetherGui and it failed initially.

After all the attempts previous test and tweaks have made changes to the server I decided to wipe the config file on the server, reboot it and start again from scratch with basic user and password settings, etc.

Configured a new account in SoftetherGui and it connected but did not get any DHCP.... Tried a second time... SUCCESS!!! it connected solid

I supposed i messed up the credentials somewhere along the line and starting from scracth and trusting in SoftetherGui was the way to go.

Thanks guys!