Travel laptop with a VPN Mapped drives not working

Hi

I have an issue with one person who of course happens to be a company President

he has a regular laptop he uses day in and day out but has a ultralite that he only uses when traveling and occasionally at night at home

the issue is once we log into the laptop and establish the VPN the mapped drives fail to connect

I can "fix" this by going start > run \\servername\ then inserting the correct logon info

I can also fix this by running a script with the VPN to delete all the mapping and re-establish them.... during the re-establishment on the mapped drives I'm prompted for a user name and password in the command console.

the third way is Windows Explorer>Tools>Map Network Drive. Click Connect using a different user name, enter the username and password.

Neither of these solutions are great for a non-technical user

does anyone have a better way ? or a way to at least prompt for credentials using the more familiar windows log on box versus a command prompt ?

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

RobertKaucher

Use the NET USE command in the script with the /user:domain\username and password options.

So something like NET USE X: [URL="file://\\server\share"]\\server\share[/URL] mypassword /USER:domain\username

Not ideal as you would be storing the username/password in a text file.

I assume you are using the /SAVECRED option already to save the credentials and it is not working?

tiersten

Is he using the laptop so infrequently that his domain password has been changed since he last used it?

I assume he's logging into the laptop and then connecting to the VPN?

rwwest7

Join his laptop to the domain, copy his local profile to his domain profile once it's created.

binarysoul

I assume once he connects to VPN, the path to network drives changes. Is this company's VPN or hosted by some other company?

Have you tried to see which route the PC takes to connect the server hosting the drives? Maybe you do a tracert to servers before and after connecting to VPN. Just my 2c

NightShade03

What kind of VPN client is he using (Cisco, Windows, OpenVPN)?

I have a script which we leave on all remote users desktops that:

a) checks for a valid network connection

b) checks the vpn client is actually running

c) then disconnects and freashly maps the correct drivers

This can all be done with a simple double click on the script.

Although already mentioned this done leave a users credentials in cleartext on the desktop, however if you have a half decent security policy laptops will screen savers after 5 minutes of inactivity and lock themselves.

rwwest7

binarysoul wrote: »

I assume once he connects to VPN, the path to network drives changes. Is this company's VPN or hosted by some other company?

Have you tried to see which route the PC takes to connect the server hosting the drives? Maybe you do a tracert to servers before and after connecting to VPN. Just my 2c

Considering he has to do a "connect as differant user", it's safe to assume whatever the guy is logging onto the laptop as is not a valid domain account. Doesn't sound like a path problem, more like an authentication issue.

Smallguy

tiersten wrote: »

Is he using the laptop so infrequently that his domain password has been changed since he last used it?

I assume he's logging into the laptop and then connecting to the VPN?

He travels once ever 2-3 weeks on average.. it is is generally not that his password has changed

and yes he logs on to his laptop first which is joined to our domain

Smallguy

rwwest7 wrote: »

Considering he has to do a "connect as differant user", it's safe to assume whatever the guy is logging onto the laptop as is not a valid domain account. Doesn't sound like a path problem, more like an authentication issue.

When I choose connect as a different user I put in his credentials.. basically refreshing them

the machine is able to resolve the names of our servers

Binary Soul... it is a VPN used by the company I work for and our many clients.. it is a Sonicwall solution

I have not tired a tracert to see what occurs prior to establishing the VPN connection... I'm not sure what type of info this test would prove since he shouldn't even be albe to reach the file server with out a VPN established unless he's wired into the LAN for his domain

Smallguy

rwwest7 wrote: »

Considering he has to do a "connect as different user", it's safe to assume whatever the guy is logging onto the laptop as is not a valid domain account. Doesn't sound like a path problem, more like an authentication issue.

it is the same domain account he uses on his primary laptop

The issue appears to be either the password doesn't cache or what ever is in the cache is constantly corrupting because when I force a re-authentication it will work correctly

Ahriakin

As was mentioned try removing/re-adding the machine itself to the domain.