All posts tagged script

Always On VPN Short Name Access Failure

Using Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune), administrators can provision Always On VPN to devices that are Azure AD joined only. Users accessing on-premises resources from these devices can still use seamless single sign-on, making this deployment option popular for organizations moving to the cloud.

Short Names

After deploying Always On VPN to Windows 10 devices that are Azure AD joined only and configured to use client certificate authentication, administrators may find that users cannot access on-premises resources by their short name, such as \\app1. The connection fails and returns the following error message.

“Windows can’t find <servername/sharename>. Check the spelling and try again.”

FQDN

Interestingly, on-premises resources are accessible using their fully qualified domain name (FQDN), such as \\app1.corp.example.net.

Troubleshooting

Testing name resolution using the short name works as expected, and the resource is reachable at the network layer, as shown here.

Workaround

This issue is related to how Windows performs authentication when connected via VPN. To resolve this issue, edit the rasphone.pbk file and change the value of UseRasCredentials to 0. Rasphone.pbk can be found in the $env:AppData\Microsoft\Network\Connections\Pbk folder.

After updating this setting, restart the VPN connection for the change to take effect.

Proactive Remediations

While helpful for testing, editing rasphone.pbk manually obviously does not scale well. To address this, consider using Intune Proactive Remediations. Intune Proactive Remediations allows administrators to deploy detection and remediation PowerShell scripts to monitor specific settings and update them if or when they change. Proactive Remediations will ensure the setting is applied consistently across all managed endpoints.

GitHub Repository

I have created a new GitHub repository dedicated to PowerShell scripts for Endpoint Manager Proactive Remediations for Always On VPN. There you will find detection and remediation scripts for the UseRasCredentials settings change described in this article.

PowerShell

Administrators can also implement this setting by running the following PowerShell command.

Set-ItemProperty -Path ‘HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa’ -Name DisableDomainCreds -Value 1

Group Policy

Another option for implementing this setting is by enabling the following Active Directory Group Policy setting.

Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options > Network access: Do not allow storage of passwords and credentials for network authentication

Additional Information

Always On VPN Endpoint Manager Proactive Remediation Scripts on GitHub

Endpoint Manager Proactive Remediations Tutorial

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by Richard M. Hicks on September 20, 2021 • Permalink

Posted by Richard M. Hicks on September 20, 2021

https://directaccess.richardhicks.com/2021/09/20/always-on-vpn-short-name-access-failure/

Removing Always On VPN Connections

Removing Always On VPN Connections Much has been written about provisioning Windows 10 Always On VPN client connections over the past few years. While the preferred method for deploying Always On VPN is Microsoft Intune, using PowerShell is often helpful for initial testing, and required for production deployment with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) or Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM). That said, there will invariably come a time when an administrator has to remove an Always On VPN connection. It is not as simple as you might think.

Important Note! The PowerShell script mentioned in this post is broken in Windows 11 and some later versions of Windows 10. This is due to an apparent bug whereby the MDM_VPNv2_01 WMI class can’t be enumerated. Microsoft is aware of the issue and hopefully it will be resolved in the near future.

PowerShell

There are a variety of ways to remove an existing Always On VPN connection, with the quickest and simplest being PowerShell and the Remove-VpnConnection cmdlet.

Get-VpnConnection -Name ‘Always On VPN’ | Remove-VpnConnection -Force

There are several limitations to this method, however.

Active Connections

Administrators will quickly realize that PowerShell fails to remove a VPN connection that is currently connected. As shown here, attempting to remove an active VPN connection will return the following error message.

“The VPN connection [connection name] cannot be removed from the local user connections. Cannot delete a connection while it is connected.”

Registry Artifacts

Removing Always On VPN connections using PowerShell commonly leaves behind registry artifacts that can potentially cause problems. For example, there are several Always On VPN-related registry entries in several locations including the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\EnterpriseResourceManager\Tracked hive that may not be deleted when removing an Always On VPN connection. When provisioning a new Always On VPN connection after deleting one with the same name previously, the administrator may encounter the following error message.

“Unable to create [connection name] profile: A general error occurred that is not covered by a more specific error code.”

Note: This error can also be caused by improperly formatted XML configuration files. More details here.

Remove-AovpnConnection Script

Veteran Always On VPN administrators are likely familiar with PowerShell scripts I’ve created called New-AovpnConneciton.ps1 and New-AovpnDeviceConnection.ps1, which are hosted on my GitHub. These scripts are adapted from code samples published by Microsoft to which I have included additional functionality. To address the limitations highlighted in this article I have published a new PowerShell script called Remove-AovpnConnection.ps1. It will remove any Always On VPN connection, even those that are currently active. It also includes logic to remove known registry artifacts common to Always On VPN. Download the script from GitHub and use the following syntax to remove an Always On VPN connection, established or not.

.\Remove-AovpnConnection.ps1 -ProfileName [connection name]

Running this PowerShell command will forcibly remove an Always On VPN connection. Use the -DeviceTunnel switch when removing a device tunnel connection (requires running in the system context). I have also included a -CleanUpOnly switch to remove registry artifacts when the VPN connection was previously removed using another method.

Updated Installation Scripts

I have also updated New-AovpnConnection.ps1 to include these registry clean up steps. This will prevent future errors when provisioning an Always On VPN client where a connection of the same name was removed previously.

Note: New-AovpnConnection.ps1 has also been updated to support device tunnel deployments. As such, I have deprecated New-AovpnDeviceConnection.ps1. Simply use New-AovpnConnection.ps1 with the -DeviceTunnel switch to deploy an Always On VPN device tunnel.