Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol - Windows Implementation

Windows Implementation

Windows Vista provides two new configuration utilities that attempt to make using L2TP without IPsec easier, both described in sections that follow below:

• an MMC snap-in called "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security" (WFwAS), located in Control Panel → Administrative Tools
• the "netsh advfirewall" command-line tool

Both these configuration utilities are not without their difficulties, and unfortunately, there is very little documentation about both "netsh advfirewall" and the IPsec client in WFwAS. One of the aforementioned difficulties is that it is not compatible with NAT. Another problem is that servers must be specified only by IP address in the new Vista configuration utilities; the hostname of the server cannot be used, so if the IP address of the IPsec server changes, all clients will have to be informed of this new IP address (which also rules out servers that addressed by utilities such as DynDNS).