VPN

[#1]

I'm a NHS worker and trying to use the VPN  (sonic wall) It all worked fine until one week ago. Our software people say it's the ISP and it  looks this will as the site cannot be accused on any device on my home network but can elsewhere. They did some clever technical stuff and they are sure this is the issue. I have read an only partially understood all of this technical stuff. Is there a technical admin out there who might be able to help as the phone service was difficult to navigate and I gave up? There is a screen shot attached with the address on it saying it is blocked by admin.

[#2]

Hi @deanhatfull 

As VPN did work for a while, I am guessing the Plusnet Firewall is set to OFF.

You can check the firewall settings at:

https://www.plus.net/member-centre/broadband/firewall

You will need to login to your account and after making any changes, drop and reconnect the PPP connection to Plusnet.

The easy way to do the latter is to reboot the router.

I suspect the problem is how the NHS Trust IT dept manage external connections.

Some IT depts running VPN's use geo-blocking to prevent VPN connection attempts from other countries (China, Russia etc).

There have been issues with some of the IP addresses used by Plusnet because they were originally assigned to companies in other countries but have been bought by Plusnet and registered for use in the UK.

Some were originally assigned to Belgium, others were originally assigned to the USA.

Not all IT depts, geo IP lists are up to date....

You could ask the NHS IT dept if they are geo-blocking the IP address assigned to your Plusnet connection.

Sadly some IT depts will not engage and fob users off etc

The NHS IT dept have the ability to look at the VPN server logs to see if they are blocking the conection.

You can  use: https://www.ionos.co.uk/tools/ip-address to find your IP address.

For example my IP address is in the range 87.112.x.x

Finally it is possible to buy a static IP address from PN for a one off £5 fee but it cannot be guranteed to resolve the VPN issue unless the root cause is Geo blocking.

Regards

Richard

[#3]

@deanhatfull  from your screen shot , it appears the SonicWall is blocking your access to the VPN server. I assume SonicWall is installed and configured by your IT department. So it looks like it's configured to block access from your public IP, either as @RichardB  suggests using Geolocation, or as a specific IP range being blocked. If this is the case then there's nothing that PlusNet can do, it's in the IT depts court to correct the blocking.

As Richard says, a static IP MAY resolve the problem since it will be allocated from a different range but the problem really lies with the IT dept configuration which appears to be blocking legitimate UK IP addresses.