Hi Everyone,

This is my first post - I've been driven to ask a question I know has been asked before, just because I have tried everything I can find and am going mad. I'm pretty new to Linux but I'll put in as much detail as I can.

I am trying to install a VPN server for no more than 10 clients. I chose Mandrake 10 Official because I am familiar with it. After installing Mdk I installed Urpmi. Then I went to poptop.org and downloaded what I thought were the required packages (ppp, pptpd and dkms). I tried installing the rpms but got the message everything was already installed.

Next I installed ppp and pptpd-server using urpmi. I could now start the pptpd service so I set up the config files as shown on poptop.org.
Trying to VPN in from a Win Xp Sp2 box and a Win 2000 box gave an error message in syslog of GRE / PTY read/write error.

I also have a few questions.
It appears like I might have to patch the kernel. Does Mdk 10 need patching for mppe and mppc? Is this distribution suitable for what I am trying to do? Is there a better one? Also, is pptp the easiest VPN to configure? My VPN has to be able to connect two offices through NATs and also a couple of road warriors.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Nicholas

Hmmm... thankyou for all the replies.

Nevermind, I figured it out myself. A few things I learnt along the way

The kernel must be recompiled with MPPC MPPE support and with the RC4 and SHA1 algorithms, and PPP must be patched accordingly.
Mandrake 10.1 Download edition no longer contains enough devel packages to run Xconfig.
Menuconfig can not be used as it can not select all the needed modules/inclusions (SHA1 and RC4 cryptos)
Mandrake 10 works fine with PPP 2.4.3 and Poptop 1.2.1
Refer to 'VPN + MPPE + MPPC' howto for further info.

Well, at least I figured it out in the end.