VPN and Remote Desktop

Tom Dunne

I'm considering setting up a laptop with Linux, the only thing that's holding me back is my need for a VPN client and a Remote Desktop client which I use to connect in to one of our client sites.

However, after doing a bit of research it appears that I should have no problem.

Any recommendations/things I should look out for? Any distribution that would be better? I would also need the occasional support for a Vodafone 3G card, which again, doesn't look like much of an issue. I am comfortable enough with Linux, just have never used it as my primary work OS before.

Would Ubuntu do the trick here? I'll be using a fairly decent spec laptop (dual core, 2Gig RAM).

An Fear Aniar

It all depends on what you'll be using it for.

The 3G modem should be OK, might need some slight coaxing but not much. Ubuntu is a fairly safe bet for first-time users. OpenSuse is also highly praised but personally I don't like the package manager (for add/remove).

Mint Linux is a variation of Ubuntu with very good hardware and multimedia support.

Sidux is another distro with a lot of good things said about it.

Basically, you can go for a debian based distro or an rpm (red hat) distro. They differ in the type of packaging used for the software.

Fedora is an rpm distro that's supposed to be very user friendly. Ubuntu is a debian distro.

Also consider what desktop environment you want, Gnome, KDE, Xfce or something really light like Fluxbox or Openbox.

Again, it's all down to your needs, do you have any special software you need to run?


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Tom Dunne

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

It all depends on what you'll be using it for.

The 3G modem should be OK, might need some slight coaxing but not much. Ubuntu is a fairly safe bet for first-time users.

I am far from a first-time user. Just haven't used it extensively over the past year or two, so I am a little out of touch.

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

Again, it's all down to your needs, do you have any special software you need to run?

Only the VPN software and Remote Desktop.

I may also need Oracle Forms Developer, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I know for a fact there is an Oracle client for Linux, I shouldn't have any problems there.

Other than that, nothing special.

Khannie

I use a lightweight VM for VPN connection so I don't lose internet connectivity on my local machine. I presume it's the cisco VPN client you want?

The windows remote desktop protocol is well supported in linux. For connecting to a linux box for remote desktop type work I'd recommend NX - see www.nomachine.com .

Overall....I'd say ubuntu is what you're looking for.

rainbowchild

Okay, I did the 3G Vodafone thing on Ubuntu and Xubuntu. It's a bit flaky. There's a good guide to setting it up, but it's still a pain in the arse.

As far as remote goes, VNC works great on Linux. I think Cisco have a VPN client as well.

What I've done though is keep Windows as my OS and use Virtualbox to run a few different Linux operating systems... Ubuntu being the main one I use to surf the net on, etc. But this way I can run Utorrent natively and use some bespoke proprietary Windows only software when needed. I can also insure all my hardware's features (bluetooth, graphics) work perfectly. Yet, still use Linux primarily. Also, even after install DeCSS some DVDs still won't play correctly (Little Brittan, for one!)

Hope my suggestion helps...

This setup is also great if you want to run Backtrack and Ubuntu at the same time :-)

An Fear Aniar

rainbowchild wrote: »

Okay, I did the 3G Vodafone thing on Ubuntu and Xubuntu. It's a bit flaky. There's a good guide to setting it up, but it's still a pain in the arse.

If I might add... those guides are for older versions of Ubuntu. Nowadays it's really easy with 8.04, it took me about 2 minutes to set it up.

As far as I know, 3G using those Huawei dongles will be fully supported in the next Ubuntu release (Intrepid Ibex) which is releasing at the end of this month.


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Tom Dunne

rainbowchild wrote: »

As far as remote goes, VNC works great on Linux. I think Cisco have a VPN client as well.

VNC is not an option, I'm afraid. I'm accessing a client's network, so I have no say in how I access it.

An Fear Aniar wrote: »

If I might add... those guides are for older versions of Ubuntu. Nowadays it's really easy with 8.04, it took me about 2 minutes to set it up.

As far as I know, 3G using those Huawei dongles will be fully supported in the next Ubuntu release (Intrepid Ibex) which is releasing at the end of this month.

Sounds good. It probably will be the end of the month before I get around to this. Ubuntu should download fairly lively on our new 15Mb connection.

The 3G dongle is really on an ad-hoc basis, when things are really bad and I have to log in on the train, so I am not overly concerned with that at the moment.

Thanks for all the help.

Orion

The Cisco VPN client for *nix is crap tbh. I do the same as Khannie - a basic install of Windows in a VM with the VPN client installed on it. As the KMan said it doesn't lock down your main internet connection - it only locks the bridge between the VM and the host.

Capt'n Midnight

Macros42 wrote: »

The Cisco VPN client for *nix is crap tbh. I do the same as Khannie - a basic install of Windows in a VM with the VPN client installed on it. As the KMan said it doesn't lock down your main internet connection - it only locks the bridge between the VM and the host.

Same true for Checkpoint.

I've not looked into NX since I didn't get it working first time but you can also use rdesktop to connect to rdp on windows boxes