Can't establish multiple L2TP IPSec Connections to main Site /w Windows Client

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Hi, we have a MediaFast 500 on our main site and a consumer Router in 2nd office at another location. We’ve set up “remote user access” via L2TP with IPsec on our MF500 so users can connect via VPN in order to access a SambaShare on our MainSite. This works quite well when everyone is in a different location.

However, when two employees are in the second office (so the two employees share the same network), and try to establish a VPN connection to the main site, only one can connect at the same time. The second one can’t establish a connection until the 1st disconnects. This seems to only happen with Windows Clients. Macs seem not to be affected by this.

I’ve done some research on the web and found that we’re not the only one with this problem. It seems like a limitation in IPsec itself and a design choice in how Windows establishes L2TP IPsec connections. However, it seems that technically it is possible. I’d like to know if we can find a way to debug this / get around this.

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Hi @etvbln,

I found the same information you elude to with your research, the limitation appears to be with the Windows OS. People have posted successful results when using a Windows and an Apple device connecting from the same site (IP) to the L2TP with IPsec server.

The best method in which to “workaround” this, I think, is to simply establish a VPN between the two sites. This would connect the two sites and associated networks and the devices on the LANs would subsequently be able to “talk to” devices on either end of the tunnel without running into the Windows OS limitation.

SpeedFusion / PepVPN or IPsec can be used to establish the site to site VPN depending on what equipment is available at the sites. Hope this helps! :slight_smile:

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