[Samba] Shares get disconnected and cannot reconnect over VPN

[Fabio Muzzi]

Hello samba,

  I have an issue with OpenVPN 2.0 and Samba 3.0.14a.

  My  setup  consists  in  a  routed  VPN  (thus server and clients are on
  different  subnets)  between a linux OpenVPN 2.0 server and some Windows
  2000 VPN clients. Samba is the PDC and is a WINS server.

  The  VPN clients work, broswing works, and I see the clients registering
  on the server's WINS in /var/lib/samba/wins.dat.

  When  I  connect  to  a share, I get connected and can use it, but after
  about  8  minutes  of  inactivity  (no  open  files),  the  share  gets
  disconnected,  and  when  I  try to use it again, Windows says it cannot
  access  the drive. After some retries, I can connect again and the whole
  thing repeats from the beginning.

  I   have  tried also using PPTP (which puts me on the same subnet as the
  server,  not on a different one) and basically it seems I am getting the
  same behaviour.

  Obviosuly the same clients, when connected directly to the server's lan,
  show no issues at all and work flawlessly.

  I don't know if PPTP lets broacasts go through or not. OpenVPN does not,
  since  it's routed and not bridged. I assume that apart from speed (512K
  on  WAN connections) broadcasts are the only differences between LAN and
  WAN set-ups.

  Is  there  something I missed with broadcasts? I assume that since I use
  WINS, I don't need broadcasts to make Samba work. Am I wrong?

-- 

  Fabio "Kurgan" Muzzi