rras with 2 nics messes up whole system

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Case Study – RRAS with 2 NICs messes up whole system

Situation: A company just upgraded their peer to peer network to domain network. They installed Windows Server 2003 with one NIC as Domain Controller, DHCP and DNS server. All computers can access the server and the Internet through a router without any problems.

Problem: Then, they added another NIC to setup RRAS for VPN access. As soon as they enabled the RRAS, no computers could access the server and the Internet.

Troubleshooting:

The result of ipconfig /all they sent to us displays the two NICs are in the same IP range, 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.3.

Resolution: 1. They should not install two NICs on a DC. Please refer to Connection issues on DC, ISA, DNS and WINS server as VPN server

2. Those two NICs should not be in the same IP range. Otherwise, you may have a name resolution or/and routing issues.

3. Since they already have a router, they don’t need to install the 2^nd NIC for the VPN access. Refer to How to setup VPN on w2k server with one NIC

4. If they do want use the Windows server as a router, they should assign a different IP range (for example, 172.16.1.1) to the 2^nd NIC.