VPN at home

Hi everyone,

Wondered if someone could kick me in the right direction. Basically, my mate just moved out and we were working on a project together.

We both have broadband and I wanted him to be able to connect to our network at home so he could access the resources on our network.

Now I dont have bags of cash or spare cisco routers, etc. So im thinking software (maybe even a nice opensource or freeware VPN for the windows platform)? or a cheap as chips way of doing it.

I know that 2003 has some sort of tunneling capability but I cant be bothered to reinstall the server with 2003 now that it has been configured correctly.

So, anyone have any ideas?

Cheers,
A

Let's start from the beginning: What kind of server do you have now, and what kind of clients are you using?? What do you want to connect to? Shares? Web pages?

If you have win2003 you should be able to setup remote desktop connection. On the client side you will need a Remote Desktop client, if you have winXP then it should be on the machine, if not then Microsoft has downloads on it's site for it. I was using this to access my work PC from my home PC.

This is not VPN as such, the packets going back and forth are not encrypted, but it will allow your friend to use the server as if he were sitting right there.

If you have Windows 2000 or XP on both sides, you can also do a VPN connection without any special equipment: like Windows 2000 and Win2003 server, win2000 Pro and WinXP Pro have VPN capability built in already. The only catch is that using the pro version, you can only accept one simultaneous incoming connection.
(the home version may be able to make outgoing, but not incoming connections, not sure about that)

Anyway, if you want to set up your system to accept a connection:
Control Panel -> Networking -> Create a new connection -> Set up an advanced connection -> Accept incoming connections -> (don't check LPT1) -> Allow virtual private connections

Voila, you;re ready to accept an incoming connection. You may need to set up some port forwarding rules in your router if you have one, google for info on what ports that might be.

the other end: Network -> Create a new connection -> connect to the network at my workplace -> Virtual Private Network connection

Now, you'll need to set up an account for the incoming user, and change the properties of the connectoids to specify who is allowed to connect there, and what to do for them. You may need to change the 'remote gateway' setting on the person dialing in to the VPN's end as well, otherwise all of his internet traffic will be routed through your computer while the connection is open, not just traffic directed to your subnet.

I've used the built-in VPN myself in the past for playing some LAN games remotely, and it did work like a charm.

openvpn I think it requires you to forward a port on your router to the computer running the openvpn server
http://openvpn.se/

Simplest solution I've ever seen is this :
here... hamachi

You all rock. Thank you very much (sorry for the delay with the thanks, first chance to get online since I posted this).

Its a windows 2000 server on my side, connecting to XP on the remote side.

server only has 1 nic tho, so it wouldnt let me use the wizard (now dont get me wrong, I used to be good at this network malarky). Thanks again,

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