VPN's

BigEejit

Anyone set up a VPN for their wireless network? (e.g. in the house with free software) ... I'm thinking of using a old laptop between my router and WAP (I have 2 old 10mbit pcmcia cards for it) and having that as one end of the VPN and then each remote device runs a VPN client and should be able to communicate ....

thats the plan anyways .... if I got that working reliably I'd like to get some freeware that could monitor the amount the various clients download if such a thing was available

I have absolutely no experience with VPN's and I am looking for pointers, gotchas and tips ..... like about what to run at each end of the VPN (I'm open to suggestions about what to put on the laptop before the WAP, but the clients are all either win98 or win2k ...) ... now I am quite weak on linux so if there is a nice end to end freeware windows solution that'd be just the ticket

The old laptop is a P2 233 I think with 128MB ram and a 6gig HD (not sure about the CPU, dont have a power supply for it yet) it'd run win98 with viruscanner and firewall alright..

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Woot ... 1337 post ...
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joePC

TightVNC is a freeware VNC client works very well I use it quite a bit, as for wireless preformance im sure there wont be any problems,

Thanks joePC

Gerry

I don't know of any windows solution for the vpn server, especially not for windows 98. I have set up vpns using a distribution of freebsd called monowall. This is not difficult to set up, it boots off a cd ( no hard drive required ), and it saves its config to a floppy. After you assign the network cards to the internal and external interfaces, you don't need a monitor or keyboard for it any more. All the rest of the setup is via a nice web gui. It supports ipsec and pptp clients, windows has pptp built in, so you can set up a vpn connection on the client without any extra software. Take a look at the screenshots on http://m0n0.ch/wall

dmd

If you want to use tightvnc/whatever then I'd suggest you tunnel it over ssh if at all possible.

You could install cygwin or if you already have a unix box on the gateway on the other end just ssh tunnel to the local ip after getting into that.

A guide on doing this can be found at http://www.uk.research.att.com/archive/vnc/sshvnc.html

BigEejit

Originally posted by Gerry
I don't know of any windows solution for the vpn server, especially not for windows 98. I have set up vpns using a distribution of freebsd called monowall. This is not difficult to set up, it boots off a cd ( no hard drive required ), and it saves its config to a floppy. After you assign the network cards to the internal and external interfaces, you don't need a monitor or keyboard for it any more. All the rest of the setup is via a nice web gui. It supports ipsec and pptp clients, windows has pptp built in, so you can set up a vpn connection on the client without any extra software. Take a look at the screenshots on http://m0n0.ch/wall

hmmm ... that looks good .. and at a price I like ... I'll D/L that tonight .... still waiting on a power supply for that laptop :mad: .. you should see what price some chancers are trying to sell generic 50Watt psu's for laptops (21V @ 2.5 A)


BTW, to the other posters, I use TightVNC alright but it wouldnt be classed as VPN software ... what I need is a secure wireless connection (because I dont have WPA) and I just happen to have a laptop that allow me to do it ... but if you have any other suggestions feel free ..

BTW, I have a windows nt 4.0 workstation license and cd (what was running on the laptop before), and I know that with a registry change I could make it a NT server ... doesnt NT server support PPTP and RAS etc?? ...
/me toddles off scratching through the rubbish on the interweb looking into nt-vpn-pptp

sirlinux

Openvpn is what you are looking for, very good altogther, used it to secure a few wireless links http://openvpn.sourceforge.net/