[Openswan Users] Remote SSH session dropped after starting IPSEC connection

[David Wilson]

Hi guys,

I have a network here in South Africa that needs to connect to a network in 
Germany via IPSEC using a preshared secret key.
We are trying to use a Suse Linux server with OpenSWAN here in South Africa 
to establish the connection to Germany so that the LANS may communicate with 
each other.

The Internal LAN range here in S.A is 192.168.0.0/24.
The Internal LAN range in Germany is 129.50.0.0/16.
Our public IP on our Linux server is 196.12.241.21.
The public IP on the gateway we need to connect to is 81.79.160.12

My problem is that when I run a (/etc/init.d/ipsec start), which I guess 
does something along the lines of (ipsec auto --up net-to-net), my remote 
SSH session to the server stops. Once this has happened, then I cannot get 
back into the server. My just connection times out, I can't even ping the 
Linux server.
I'm guessing that as soon as the IPSEC VPN initializes it changes my normal 
IP default route/gateway ?
Any ideas on what could be causing this ?

My entire /etc/ipsec.conf looks like this:
version 2.0
conn net-to-net
        authby=secret
        left=81.79.160.12
        leftsubnet=129.50.0.0/16
        leftnexthop=%defaultroute
        right=196.12.241.21
        rightsubnet=192.168.0.0/24
        rightnexthop=81.79.160.12
        auto=start

Unfortunately my knowlege of IPSEC is dangerous I'm sure I've got something 
wrong somewhere.
Any assistance or input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance !


Kind regards

David Wilson
CNS, CLS, Linux+
T: 0860-1-LINUX
F: 0866878971
M: 0824147413
E: support at dcdata.co.za
W: http://www.dcdata.co.za 


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