Nighthawk M6 Pro VPN Traffic Disconnects

[ktsaved]

Nighthawk M6 Pro, AT&T.

Creating VPN connection out to remote site.

VPN connects and traffic flows initially.

After a few minutes VPN traffic stops even though the VPN shows it is still up.

After some time, the traffic may start flowing again for a few minutes.

This cycle keeps repeating.

Can ping out to the remote site, the remote site receives and sends replies but the replies do not get back through the M6 to the sending device.

During this time, pings succeed to the public IP address of the remote site and to other sites on the internet.

Internet communication is fine but the VPN traffic itself doesn't make it back through the M6.

VPN Passthrough is enabled.

Have tried using DMZ and setting port forwarding rules manuall.

No settings change makes any difference.

[WillowCTX]

I have this issue as well.  been going on a few months,

[ktsaved]

Solution:

After getting a static IP address assigned to the service the VPN will now stay connected.

It's actually a public IP that is routable on the internet.

The dynamic IPs are private addresses and they are doing something in their network that is interfering with the VPN.

Service in use is AT&T.

Very hard to actually get a static IP from AT&T, not because they don't sell them, but because the call center people can't do it, they send people to the stores to get one, the stores can't do it and a lot of those people don't even know what one is. Very hard to get to the right department.

After hours on the phone, they gave me the number of the BMIOD department.

This department requires a PIN to connect to anyone, and after connecting they will ask you the for the PIN.

I finally convinced one call center worker that I needed a PIN and they gave me a generic PIN.

The man I spoke with then asked for a PIN and wondered how I was able to get through to him.

I started explaining the situation and he stepped in to help me around the normal procedure. He put in a request to the department the assigns the static IPs and I had one on the account in a few hours.

There is a huge gap between the telecom departments. They make it very difficult to buy services from them.

Their "Advanced Technical Support" department is in name only. It's just another line to a call center where they don't know much at all.

[JohnPeng]

Please contact AT&T to see whether they have VPN enabled data service. Most carriers provide such service with extra costs for business customers. This is not device issue.

Thanks

[WillowCTX]

What is notable is my MR1100  works as expected over VPN but not the M6 Pro.

[JohnPeng]

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@WillowCTX wrote:

What is notable is my MR1100  works as expected over VPN but not the M6 Pro.

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Which carrier are you using? What data plan did you get on the SIM card?

Thanks

[WillowCTX]

AT&T Unlimited Prepaid.  $55/100GB

[idck_de]

Thanks for sharing that. Majority does not pay attention to these. 

[justinwelch]

Did you have to do anything on the M6 Pro when configuring the static IP address? I had a static IP address assigned to me by Verizon but the M6 Pro never "took it". With the previous Cisco device I was using, I had to manually enter/assign the ISP static IP address. I don't see a way to be able to do that with the M6 Pro. 

Thanks!

[JohnPeng]

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@justinwelch wrote:

Did you have to do anything on the M6 Pro when configuring the static IP address? I had a static IP address assigned to me by Verizon but the M6 Pro never "took it". With the previous Cisco device I was using, I had to manually enter/assign the ISP static IP address. I don't see a way to be able to do that with the M6 Pro. 

Thanks!

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For your static IP case, you can try to enable IP Passthrough on M6 Pro. Then the static IP can be passed to your Ethernet client. 

Please check whether this works for you.

Thanks

John

[justinwelch]

@JohnPeng . I'll admit that I didn't have IP Passthrough enabled when I tried it before. However, if you are on the M6 Pro GUI, you can see your public facing IP address listed. When Verizon assigned me a dynamic IP address, the M6 Pro accepted that. When they assigned a static IP address, it was as if the M6 Pro wouldn't accept it. 

This is similar behavior to the Cisco router I had previously. With the Cisco router, I had to configure it to use the static IP that Verizon had given me. In other words, I had to go into the router CLI and specifically give it the IP address that Verizon assigned. 

Nothing downstream has changed so I don't think just enabling IP Passthrough would work. But I can give it a shot if you really think it might help.

[JohnPeng]

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@justinwelch wrote:

@JohnPeng . I'll admit that I didn't have IP Passthrough enabled when I tried it before. However, if you are on the M6 Pro GUI, you can see your public facing IP address listed. When Verizon assigned me a dynamic IP address, the M6 Pro accepted that. When they assigned a static IP address, it was as if the M6 Pro wouldn't accept it. 

This is similar behavior to the Cisco router I had previously. With the Cisco router, I had to configure it to use the static IP that Verizon had given me. In other words, I had to go into the router CLI and specifically give it the IP address that Verizon assigned. 

Nothing downstream has changed so I don't think just enabling IP Passthrough would work. But I can give it a shot if you really think it might help.

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Yes. Please give IPT a try and let me know whether this helps.

Regards

John