Setting up a VPN

Tom Dunne

In the absence of the search function, apologies if this has been asked before.

A bit of background: I work for a small computer company that has been asked to set up a VPN between two sites and from a home to the central site. The boss wants to outsource this to another company, but I would like to get the facts together to see what's involved before I agree.

Bottom line is, I am farily techy and want to see if I could do it myself. I have used it extensively as an end-user myself and have a good understanding of the theory.

So, what is involved?

The Clown Man

How do you want to link the offices? A leased line? If so that is expensive. Are they close to one another? Could you set up a line of site wireless connection? Honestly, setting up a VPN is easy, getting a connection that is going to allow you to use it is the hard part. Are you using a database with this VPN or are you just sharing files etc?

If there is only one client connecting from home would terminal services through a broadband connection not suit the bill?

AndrewMc

I've used OpenVPN (runs on Linux and Windows) successfully for connecting single users to a company network. It's much the same job if you want to join up two networks. The exact settings you choose depends on whether you want to have two separate LANs connected together with a route through the VPN, or if you want to bridge the two together to appear as one LAN.

For me, it works perfectly and costs nothing.

Stephen

The only problem with using most Irish adsl products for this is you're going to be stuck with the slower end of the up/down speeds they offer.... i.e. if you have two sites connected via a vpn, both having 2Mb adsl... the most you're going to get is 128kbit/sec cos of the stupid crippled upstream bandwidth we get here. Some of the ISP's will, however, offer products with higher upstream speeds (see the likes of digiweb metro wireless).

ednwireland

the only other thing is you should really use fixed ip's (or dynamic dns) but i'd still go for fixed ip.
if youve got a couple of windows servers you could use them but then have to get traffic through the firewall to server.
if you got two routers with vpn capability (same make helps) just use them.
all other comments on speed etc you need to take on board as well

Tom Dunne

The Clown Man wrote:

How do you want to link the offices? A leased line? If so that is expensive. Are they close to one another? Could you set up a line of site wireless connection? Honestly, setting up a VPN is easy, getting a connection that is going to allow you to use it is the hard part. Are you using a database with this VPN or are you just sharing files etc?

If there is only one client connecting from home would terminal services through a broadband connection not suit the bill?

I have to gather more info on the client site before I can answer these. I had proposed a leased line, but the customer is swaying towards VPN. Never thought of Terminal Services.

ednwireland wrote:

if you got two routers with vpn capability (same make helps) just use them.

This is the route (sorry, couldn't resist it ) I was also considering - any recommendations? I believe Cisco do some.

This is great info so far, thanks.

ednwireland

dont forget if they just want access to mail there are numerous other ways such as microsoft remote desktop or outlook web access if they have sbs. if you want a simple vpn to access a main server you could use an outsourced service (bit pricey though) such as http://www.accessmylan.com.
cisco kit bit pricey and not the most intuitive, if you want seperate vpn servers there are a number (as opposed to vpn routers) netscreen springs to mind.
sorry to be vague so many options, i've setup a couple of businesses with microsoft vpn and sbs not my favourite but all they'd use since they had it already. it really depends what kit and connectivity you've got and what you actually need to acheive at the end of it.

zAbbo

What will the remote users be doing?

A beefy Terminal Services Server at the main office, with a VPN solution, and allow remote office's / users to connect.

Remote Desktop will use less bandwidth as well.

Tom Dunne

I'll being doing a review of their current setup next week, so I'll have a much better idea of what they have and what they need.

I am currently playing around with OpenVPN - much more straight forward than I thought. I might just be doing this for the client after all.