R7800 issues connecting to VPN

[Rafael C]

Hi gentlemen; first, big thanks to @Voxel for his hard work and awesome FW. I'm currently using v1.0.2.76.1, and for the past few versions I've been having issues when trying to have any of my devices connected to the R7800 router to any VPN that uses L2TP/IPSEC. I'm able to connect to VPNs using Cisco, F5 or whatever else as a client, but when I try using the windows L2TP/IPSec or from an iOS device, it fails. I looked in the GUI, and don't see anything for passthroughs, visited the Netgear site with no luck at all. Any help or hint as to how can I troubleshoot this, would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Rafael C]

bumping this hoping someone would help out...

 

[Rafael C]

bumping again, hoping anyone can help out...can't connect to some of my clients who use l2tp/ipsec, unless I bypass my router.

 

[kamoj]

Found this:
https://www.vpngate.net/en/howto_l2tp.aspx
"However, some networks or firewalls block L2TP/IPsec packets. If L2TP/IPsec fails, try OpenVPN. "

 

[Rafael C]

Thank you so very much for responding. Problem is my R7800 didn't have this problem before. I believe it started with v62 or something of the firmware (using Voxel's now, same thing); I reached out to Netgear community, and nothing...was hoping someone would have gone through the same thing

 

[kamoj]

First you must find out exactly which Netgear stock firmware it was last working with.
"v62 or something" is not enough.
Post that information here, please.

Then you could try with Netgears site:
https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/bd-p/home-wifi-routers-nighthawk

PS
Netgear's release notes:

R7800-V1.0.2.58:
[New Feature] Increases the maximum traffic meter limit to 4095 TB.
[New Feature] Adds ability to sync NTP setting and configure local timezone so users can avoid auto firmware update in the middle of the day.
[New Feature] Removes support for channels 132, 136, and 140 in 5G_HT80 mode to meet regularity.
[Bug Fix] Fixes an issue where the name of the attached device disappears if the firmware is updated to V1.0.2.52.
[Bug Fix] Fixes security issues.
[Bug Fix] Fixes minor bugs.

R7800-V1.0.2.60:
[Bug Fix] Fixes security issues.
[Bug Fix] Fixes minor bugs.

R7800-V1.0.2.62:
[New Feature] Modifies the router web interface to support DDNS GDPR v3.
[New Feature] Includes a new NETGEAR banner logo.
[New Feature] Removes Step 1 from the ReadySHARE Vault page in the router web interface, which asked to install the genie app.
[New Feature] The http request will not be redirected when the router detects a WAN/LAN IP conflict in the blank state.
[New Feature] Updates dnsmasq to V2.78.
[New Feature] Includes a login password enhancement in the router web interface to support a more secure password.
[Bug Fix] Improve the stability of the wireless 5G interface.
[Bug Fix] Fixes the issue where the speed test in the QoS page always displays a zero number.
[Bug Fix] Fixes the issue where if the MTU value is set to 1492 in PPPoE mode, some IPv6 web site can t be accessed.
[Bug Fix] Fixes some minor bugs.

R7800-V1.0.2.68:
[New Features] Supports FCC channels 136, 140, and 144.
[Bug Fixes] Fixes minor bugs.

 

[R. Gerrits]

What do you mean with : bypass the router?
Do you then connect your modem directly to a computer, so that the computer directly has the WAN IP?
What WAN IP do you then get? A public IP? Or has your provider switched to using private IPs + NAT.

i guess to troubleshoot, you should either try to flash an old stock version + factory default to see if it then works again.
or you'd need to wireshark the connection attempts ( both on the device that has the IPsec and via the debug page on the router) and hope you can see the issue in there.

 

[Rafael C]

Hi Guys, I checked my downloads, and it was v68 of the firmware. Tried getting an older working version, same thing. I am planning on doing a factory reset and see if that does it. @R. Gerrits I connect my PC to my modem directly, and I am able to connect to the L2TP/IPSec VPN; I also connect it to my phone on hotspot mode, and it works also. If the factory reset doesn't work, then I'll do the wireshark thing. Thank you so much for the ideas guys!