need help on vpn (10.5)

[zayjay]

I have my sever running 10.5.5 at home, with vpn configured L2TP,
when i'm in the local network, i can connect to the vpn by entering the
server address as XXXX.local or the local 192 ... ip address.

but when i try to connect it by entering the domain name(XXX.com), it keeps telling me: "The connection has failed, please check your settings..."

but my domain name, website etc. they are all working, can somebody help me with this? if i can't connect the vpn by the domain name, then there's meaning for doing the vpn thing......

Thank you guys very much....

[wrldwzrd89]

This is probably because Macs on your local network cannot resolve the domain name, since they don't know who to talk to to find it. If the domain name works when outside your home network, that would confirm my suspicion. In any case, there are two ways to fix this.

1. Add an entry to the hosts file for each Mac on the local network, pointing the domain name to the local network IP address.
2. If your server Mac happens to have DNS running, point the other Macs to it as a DNS server.

[zayjay]

I'm sorry, I think I didn't make myself clear,
in my office, it still gives me the same problem.
connection failed to the domain name.
is there anything more about the domain i should setup on the server?

[zarathustra]

Maybe these are moot points:

1) Is the OSX server used as the DHCP server, or do you use a router?
2) Did you open the appropriate ports?
3) Is your ISP doing something sneaky?

If you do have a router that distributes your local IP addresses, you need to make sure that the OSX server IP address is static, and then designate it to be in the DMZ - if you want it to be outside the router's firewall. If not, you need to set up the appropriate port triggers or forwards.