VPN connection is established but I can't ping the server

[phobiac]

I've got OpenVPN installed on a debian linux server, and in this case the client is a Windows 7 computer. I apologize in advance for how long this post is.

To start with I used this guide as a base reference

http://www.serverubuntu.it/openvpn-bridge-configuration

I've followed it near to the letter, however I am using a server.conf made by just walking through the sample server.conf and changing what needed to be changed.

Here is my server.conf, minus the comments.

Code: Select all

port 1194
proto udp
dev tap

ca keys/ca.crt
cert keys/server.crt
key keys/server.key
dh keys/dh1024.pem

ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt

server-bridge 172.16.1.127 255.255.255.0 172.16.1.200 172.16.1.210

client-to-client
duplicate-cn
keepalive 10 120

cipher BF-CBC 

comp-lzo

max-clients 5

user nobody
group nogroup

persist-key
persist-tun

status openvpn-status.log

verb 3

And here is the client.conf

Code: Select all

client

dev tap

remote my.server.com 1194 # I modified this, the actual config has my true server address
 
nobind
 
persist-key
persist-tun

ca ca.crt
cert client.crt
key client.key
 
ns-cert-type server

cipher BF-CBC

comp-lzo

verb 3

As I said the client connects fine and (according to the logs of both the client and server) is given an IP. A sample, in this case from the server:

Code: Select all

 Fri Jul  5 07:55:46 2013 66.189.246.61:64638 [client] Peer Connection Initiated with [AF_INET]66.189.246.61:64638
Fri Jul  5 07:55:48 2013 client/66.189.246.61:64638 PUSH: Received control message: 'PUSH_REQUEST'
Fri Jul  5 07:55:48 2013 client/66.189.246.61:64638 SENT CONTROL [client]: 'PUSH_REPLY,route-gateway 172.16.1.127,ping 10,ping-restart 120,ifconfig 172.16.1.200 255.255.255.0' (status=1)
Fri Jul  5 07:55:49 2013 client/66.189.246.61:64638 MULTI: Learn: 00:ff:c3:01:b2:b5 -> client/66.189.246.61:64638
Fri Jul  5 07:59:22 2013 client/66.189.246.61:51321 [client] Inactivity timeout (--ping-restart), restarting
Fri Jul  5 07:59:22 2013 client/66.189.246.61:51321 SIGUSR1[soft,ping-restart] received, client-instance

The inactivity timeout bit happened while I was trying to ping the server at 172.16.1.127. Am I grossly misunderstanding how the VPN is supposed to work or did I configure something entirely wrong?

[phobiac]

I suspect my problem is actually with the Windows 7 firewall. When I look at my list of active networks in the Network and Sharing Center the connection for OpenVPN is set to a public network. However I'm not being given the option to make it a Home network and the OpenVPN GUI seems to automatically make it a public network. I tried googling for help on that but I'm at a loss.