Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] L2TP-over-IPsec (may be off topic)

From: Sake Blok <sake@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2010 21:50:13 +0200
On 14 sep 2010, at 20:15, Kok-Yong Tan wrote:

> On Sep 14, 2010, at 13:59, Sake Blok wrote:
> 
>> It seems like the L2TP tunnel just does not trigger the IPsec  
>> encapsulation to kick in. What does a network trace say? Only  
>> traffic on UDP port 1701, no UDP-500, no ip proto 50 and no UDP  
>> port 4500? That would be in sync with the above.
> 
> This will be the next step but I haven't done that yet.

That would get it a little more on-topic too, analysing the packets ;-)


>> What type of L2TP-over-IPsec client and L2TP-over-IPsec server are  
>> involved?
> 
> I'm trying various Macintoshes at OS versions 10.5.8 and 10.6.4 to an  
> Xserve running OS version 10.4.11.

If I understand your mails correctly, the FW does *not* terminate the IPsec tunnel, nor the L2TP tunnel within the IPsec tunnel. Both are terminated at the Xserve. In that case, the FW must have a NAT rule to forward incoming IKE+ESP/NAT-T traffic towards Xserve. Could it be that the NAT for IPsec secretly also forwards L2TP?

A trace on the public and private side of the FW would really make finding the cause easier :-)

Cheers,
Sake