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Problem with Cisco VPN concentrator



We have developed kind of a VPN masquerade feature for our USG (Universal Subscriber Gateway) product to let ISAKMP and ESP connections passthrough from clients behind our gateway to respective VPN servers. We have taken tips to do accurate routing for inbound traffic from the Linux VPN Masquerade patch code. We are facing a weird problem with the Cisco VPN Concentrator series 3000 ( and maybe all Cisco VPN servers).
 
Since we are doing PAT ( port address translation) multiple subscribers trying to connect to the same Cisco VPN concentrator are unable to do that since Cisco can see only the our USG's IP address and the same port number for ISAKMP (UDP/500) traffic from multiple subscribers. This way Cisco keeps the most recent connection only and the earlier clients connection gets dropped. Other devices (e.g Nortel Contivity) do not show such behaviour and can keep simultaneous sessions even though coming apparently ( USG's IP address) from the same client ( i guess by differentiating them on the basis of the ISAKMP initiator cookies).
 
Cisco accepts the issue with PAT in its release notes and says that it will accept multiple connection from the same client (apparently - although in our case they are multiple clients being PATed on the same IP address and same port) only if they have different source port numbers.
 
Now the question. We want to support both Cisco and non-Cisco connection going through are box without the user seeing any disconnections. Cisco will work with normal PAT ( src ip/src port <---> USG IP/ assigned src port) But others ( e.g Nortel) don't, which require both destination and source port to be 500. Is there a way to "probe" the Cisco concentrator that will till us that it is a "Cisco" and so we should do normal PAT otherwise we should do our normal ISAKMP handling ( keeping track of cookies)?
 
Anybody has any other solution/idea for it?
 
thanks
 
-Bik

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Bik Singh                                   818-575-2518 (Off)
Research Scientist                      818-597-1502 (Fax)
Product Development                  31355 Agoura Road
Nomadix                         Westlake Village, CA 91361

 

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