Monitoring Encrypted Traffic

Troubleshooting your wireless LAN (WLAN) VPN gateway is much easier when you use the Network Monitor tool, which is available on the Windows 2000 Server CD-ROM. You can use this tool to monitor your wireless clients and ensure that all traffic is encrypted. In addition, you can see Internet traffic leaving your VPN server's public interface and heading for the Internet gateway. To install Network Monitor, open the Control Panel Add/Remove Programs applet. Select Add/Remove Windows Components from the left-hand pane. After the list of Windows Components appears (which might take a few seconds), scroll down and click Management and Monitoring Tools. Click Details. In the Management and Monitoring Tools dialog box, under the subcomponents window, select the Network Monitor Tools check box. Insert the Win2K Server CD-ROM, then click OK. Click Next. The server will spend a minute or so configuring its components. Click Finish to complete the installation, then click Close to close the Add/Remove Programs applet.

You can now access Network Monitor under Administrative Tools. If you're running PPTP, you should see only Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) and Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) packets between your client and VPN Server. If you're running Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) over IP Security (IPSec), you should see only Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP) and Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) packets.