I hope somebody in here can assist as I am tearing my hair out.
We have three servers A B and C. All are running Windows Server 2003. We use RRAS to setup demand dial between the servers to enable "private" communication between them as opposed to the Internet facing network traffic on the single network card in each. Each server has it's own private (192.168) subnet on the demand dial interface.
This has worked fine for a couple of years but now we are going to introduce a fourth server (Lets call it D) running Windows server 2008.
I have added the server role to get RRAS installed and configured.
I have added a Demand Dial link on the server to connect it to server A above.
Both servers dial each other successfully. Without problem.
I have enabled the Windows Firewall rules to allow ICMP
As a "Belt and Braces" approach I even added two extra "Allow" rules to allow IPV4 & IPV6 ICMP packets of type echo to pass through the firewall.
There are no Filters on any of the interfaces in RRAS on either server
Server D (Win2008) can ping Server A. It can ping either the 192.168 private address or of course the external address.
Server A (Win2003) cannot ping Server D on its internal private 192.168 address but it can ping its external internet address (So I know the firewall can't be the reason wouldn't you agree?)
After a day of this I thought maybe there was something wrong with some obscure setting in Server A. So I created another demand dial link between Server C (Win2003) and Server D (Win2008). Exactly the same behaviour without exception.
Next, disable / delete the demand dial between Server A and Server D and instead setup a simple VPN dialup connection to Serevr D from Server A. BINGO! It can ping. So how come if I have a demand dial it cannot ping the remote server but if I use a normal VPN dialup connection it can?!?!
There must be something else blocking packets but I cannot for the life of me work out what it is. There is no anti-virus on either box to worry about so completely stumped now what to do. If I can't even ping then I definitely haven't got a hope of getting network shares etc going.
I wondered if there was perhaps a hotfix or something I might be missing for either Win2003 or Win 2008?
BTW Win2003 on all the servers are up to SP2.
In case it's of any help I have quoted below the routing table from Server A (Windows 2003). Server A is on subnect 192.168.166.0 (Server is 192.168.166.1) and Server D is on 192.168.173.0 (Server is 192.168.173.1). The other 192.168 subjects listed are all for comms to the other 2 servers B and C.
Many thanks in advance for any help you can give. It's much appreciated.
Regards
Nick
IPv4 Route Table
===========================================================================
Interface List
0x1 ........................... MS TCP Loopback interface
0x10002 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
0x10003 ...00 0d 61 72 29 35 ...... Realtek RTL8139/810X Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC
0x20004 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
0x30005 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
0x40006 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
0x90007 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
0xd0008 ...00 53 45 00 00 00 ...... WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface
===========================================================================
===========================================================================
Active Routes:
Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 81.27.99.1 81.27.99.113 20
81.27.96.161 255.255.255.255 81.27.99.1 81.27.99.113 20
81.27.96.168 255.255.255.255 81.27.99.1 81.27.99.113 20
81.27.99.0 255.255.255.0 81.27.99.113 81.27.99.113 20
81.27.99.113 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 20
81.27.106.26 255.255.255.255 81.27.99.1 81.27.99.113 20
81.27.106.27 255.255.255.255 81.27.99.1 81.27.99.113 20
81.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 81.27.99.113 81.27.99.113 20
127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 1
192.168.164.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.166.2 192.168.164.2 1
192.168.164.2 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.164.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.164.2 192.168.164.2 50
192.168.165.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.166.3 192.168.165.2 1
192.168.165.2 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.165.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.165.2 192.168.165.2 50
192.168.166.1 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.166.2 255.255.255.255 192.168.164.2 192.168.164.2 1
192.168.166.3 255.255.255.255 192.168.165.2 192.168.165.2 1
192.168.166.4 255.255.255.255 192.168.173.2 192.168.173.2 1
192.168.166.5 255.255.255.255 192.168.174.2 192.168.174.2 1
192.168.173.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.166.4 192.168.173.2 1
192.168.173.2 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.173.4 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.173.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.173.2 192.168.173.2 50
192.168.173.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.173.4 192.168.173.4 50
192.168.174.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.166.5 192.168.174.2 1
192.168.174.2 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50
192.168.174.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.174.2 192.168.174.2 50
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 81.27.99.113 81.27.99.113 20
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.164.2 192.168.164.2 50
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.165.2 192.168.165.2 50
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.173.2 192.168.173.2 50
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.173.4 192.168.173.4 50
224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 192.168.174.2 192.168.174.2 50
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 81.27.99.113 81.27.99.113 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.164.2 192.168.164.2 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.165.2 192.168.165.2 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.173.2 192.168.173.2 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.173.4 192.168.173.4 1
255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 192.168.174.2 192.168.174.2 1
Default Gateway: 81.27.99.1
===========================================================================
Persistent Routes:
None
remove the .nospam to pm.