Question : Cannot see or ping resources on vpn server end after connection

I've set up a VPN at my office with Win2K server setup as a single domain controller on the server end. Cable connection goes to Linksys BEFSR41 router set up as local DHCP server. This router points to the Win2K server for WINS. I've also tried both having the router point to this server for DNS (which doesn't make much sense to me but tried it after seeing it suggested elsewhere) and to not point to it for DNS--didn't work then either.

I'm currently using this server also as the DHCP server for only (hopefully) VPN routing purposes,
to assign internal network machines unique IP addresses. Address range assigned is
192.168.1.225  --  192.168.1.250.

The remote network is a workgroup, with the 2K server the only member of the domain. 7 other machines are all members of the workgroup, server and workgroup machines all routed off of the Linksys router.

The server is configured to use L2TP. The client (Win2K Pro at my home) is set to use automatic protocol detection.

I've forwarded 2 ports in the router's configuration (port 500 for IPsec and 1723 for PPTP) and enabled them. I'm not (I don' think) using IPsec, so perhaps I don't need to forward port 500 ???

I make the VPN connection and register on the network fine from the Win2K Pro client at home.
However, this is the point of failure:

      When I ping the public IP of the cable modem, (ping -a x.x.x.x) , the modem address gets resolved to the host name, but packets are not returned--ping times out.

      The same thing happens when pinging all machines on the remote network, the server and its clients on the network all get names resolved to correct computer names but ping times out.
This occurs when I ping the addresses as specified in the DHCP range of the Win2K server
(192.168.1.225  to 250).  ALL computer names come back resolved correctly for 7 machines x.x.x.225 to x.x.x.231.

I've tried ping -w 10000, and pinging machine names directly. Both give no help.

Also, I believe I've configured this server to use certificates.

Absolutely nothing is visible on the remote network or server in client Network Places in Explorer.

What am I missing, overdoing, or totally botching up ?
Could the certificate requirement by the server be my problem? Can I undo this requirement?

Answer : Cannot see or ping resources on vpn server end after connection

Just to clarify what I said, (I am a little confused now with the setup after seeing your last posting), this is what you need to do:

1  At HOME, switch everything (router, workstation, etc.) to 192.168.2.X

2  In the OFFICE, leave everything at 192.168.1.X as it were before.

You should be able to ping all the local machine at home as well as the office machines AFTER you've made the above changes.  Try pinging them via the IP address (i.e. ping 192.168.1.100, ping 192.168.2.100, etc.) to confirm that you can access BOTH network.

- Info