Remote Access Suggestions

tomED

Was just wondering if anyone could give me examples or ideas on the best way to provide remote access to my server in my office.

I want employees to be able to access files on the server as if they were in the office. We are on a DSL line - im sure I have to request a static ip.

But if there is anything else i need please include in your post.

PC Anywhere isnt really what im looking for (ot terminal services), but will use terminal services as a last resort.

Id like to be able to map a drive to the server on my pc at home.
So that for example if I opened excel and someone else opened it, they would be notified. Surely this is possible???

Any thoughts greatly appreciated!
Thanks in anticipation of your replies!

Rew

VPN - Virtual Private Network?

Lets them log in as if they were in the office, can be tricky to set up.

tomED

Yeah thought of a VPN.

Any ideas where I can get info on how to set one up?

Gaz

Heres how i set up the one in our office....

We have a cisco PIX firewall , set up VPN access on that like so

Conf t
vpdn username username password password
wr mem
(where italics put relevant username/password)

Now all you need to do is set up a vpn connection on the client pcs , in windows 2000 that is done in "network and dial-up connections" and yes you will need a static ip.

Now your users dial up to net , connect to vpn with username and password you gave them and they will have full network access.

Hope that helped ...

tomED

Thanks for the reply darth, but I think im a bit of a step behind that!

All i got at the moment is my zyxel dsl router, that I have to first figure out how to get that to route all requests to the server.


I think thats SUA on a zyxel router afaik.

I guess I need to know, what ports to open, what do i have to do to the server etc??? Maybe im over complicating things?

Gavin

Can use win2000 as a vpn server. You'll have a fair bit of reading to do on it. Another simpler option is to stick a modem in a nt/2000 server machine and allow people to dial into the network.

Search through this board for vpn stuff, and the microsoft website has some good step by step docs for setting up win2000 vpn.

For the opensource option, freeswan is an option along with a fair few other methods. Linux documentation project has a fair bit of info about it.

Gav

Capt'n Midnight

Make sure it blocks all access from the internet.

(Since you don't have an email sever - no need to open port 25
and unless you have a web server keep 80 closed too.)

Now you can play around with PPTP - or VPN adaptor depending which version of windows you have. It's like a dial up connection except instead of phone numbers it uses IP's.

Remembering M$'s absoultely woeful record on security on no account connect a windows machine directly to the Internet ....

Remember all the worlds crackers are on the internet - some will know more than you...

Beware, many cheap firewalls claim to support VPN's / PPTP but they just pass through to a seperate server you are supposed to already have...


Bottom line - unless spend a lot of money on a system like SecureID you wil be caught up in the ease of use Vs. Security balance - do your users have Strong passwords at present ? - do users know each others passwords - how much is you data worth ? - if some one dialled in and "select all - delete" would that be a problem ?

I would suggest you look at users picking up email first - if your server supports web mail AND Https (with an S) etc. - not suggesting you implement it - just the concerns on security are a little more obvious...