[Web4lib] VPN for remote access

[Mark Sandford]

Ed,

Have you looked at Remote Desktop for Windows?  It just needs to be
configured if you're running Windows XP Pro.  The upside to that is that XP
Home has the client installed already, so there's no software you need to
buy or install at home.  I'm not sure about earlier windows versions.  As
far as I know, if the work machine is running XP Pro, you just need to
enable Remote Desktop and open the firewall to it.  It uses the Windows
username/password to log in.

Also, there are some VNC programs that are good for the same effect.  I've
used UltraVNC (http://www.uvnc.com/index.html)  It's open source, very easy
to configure, and the only network support needed is an open port in the
firewall.  You can specify what port you want to use.

A benefit is the UltraVNC viewer can be launched as a standalone file from a
USB drive without installing on a machine at all, and it's a standard
protocol so you can even use a linux box (and I'm sure there's a Mac VNC
client somewhere, too) to connect to the Windows machine.

In either case, you'd need to know the address of the machine you're
connecting to.  I use UltraVNC to connect to my home PC and have port
forwarding set up on my router.

These aren't exactly VPN based solutions, but they can be for added
security.  My campus, for instance, requires a VPN connection before the
firewall will let you connect to a PC using Remote Desktop.  VNC allows for
several flavors of encryption and compression, which is nice if you need to
tweak due to bandwidth issues.

Hope that helps,

-- 
Mark Sandford
Special Formats Cataloger
William Paterson University
(973)270-2437
sandfordm1 at wpunj.edu

On 1/30/07, Ed Erjavek <erjaveked at sbpl.org> wrote:
>
>
> Our director is interested a VPN-type solution that would provide remote
> access to her email and files.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions for something affordable and easy for her
> to use and our administrators to configure?
>
>