Not able to connect to remote server even though Cisco Anyconnect shows connected

Question

The issue occurs only on the WiFi network. I am using Airtel Xstream router.

The issue is when i connect using cisco anyconnect then the connection is successful and I am able to access my organization server.

But after few minutes of inactivity(3-5 minutes), the VPN connection shows that it is connected but I am not able to access my organization server and work.

I have to reconnect again and again and this is causing a lot of problem for me.

There is not such issue if I use mobile hotspot.

Answer 1

Generally this is symptom is always timeouts on the Enterprise NAT or stateful firewall translation table.

Depending on the precise configuration of the Airtel Xstream or any Cisco hardware and the method you wish to resolve this:

1. Increasing timeouts on the firewall to more reasonable amount of time is easy, but may not be the best security.
2. If you are using ssh, enable keepalives to maintain traffic and prevent ssh disconnects.
3. Avoiding NAT altogether in the VPN will eliminate NAT timeouts.
4. A crude way to keep the problem at bay with a file share is to have an application continually read a small file over the network share.
5. For a Mail Server, you can increase the frequency the client contacts the server for mail.

Answer 2

I have launched 2 command prompt sessions and ping my ip address indefinitely.

This has prevented the connection from getting dropped.

cmd1

ping xxx.xx.xx.xxx -t

cmd2

ping xxx.xx.xx.xxx -t