[nylug-talk] Clean Slate Remote Office Connectivity

[H. G.]

On 4/20/07, Marco Romeny <marco.romeny at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 4/20/07, Eric <etamme at optonline.net> wrote:
> > Jim McBride wrote:
> > > Hi All:
> > >
> > > Clean Slate Remote Office Connectivity:
> > > Need to set up a satellite office. Nothing in the remote office yet.
> Still to be leased. However the time frame is June/July 2007.
> > > My question is concerning connectivity between this new satellite
> office and the "home" office.
> > > The users in the Satellite office will need to connect to applications
> running on the home server in the "home" office.
> > > There will be a maximum of 4 users in this remote office.
> > >
> > > By  Clean Slate I mean that there is no current connectivity between
> the offices so
> > > anything can be configured/built/purchased. I envision the satellite
> office having a fairly
> > > decent DSL connection.
> > >
> > > Would prefer an already built hardware or hardware/software combo type
> solution due to time constraints/learning curve that would go along with a
> "build a software solution" on older type hardware.
> > >
> > > Money is a consideration but certainly not the primary one.
> Reliability, ease of configuration and maintenance would take a higher
> priority.
> > >
> > > Suggested Solutions anyone.
> > >
> > >
> > > Jim
> >
> > I have recently setup OpenVPN for a VPN solution between offices on
> > located at 4 corners of the country.  It scales well from 1-100's of
> > people and was not difficult to setup.  It has been rock solid since i
> > set it up and it runs on commodity hardware (a 700mhz box w/512mb ram).
> >  I would highly recommend it as a VPN solution, whether or not you have
> > money to spend.
>
> I second openvpn. Not only good for this kind of setup, it's actually
> pretty
> easy to do roadwarrior configurations without static ip-addresses.
>
> But I think getting enough bandwidth is the biggest issue as always....
>
> >
> > -Eric
> >
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>
>
> --
> +++++++++++++++++++++++
> Marco ter Haar Romeny
> Email:marco.romeny at gmail.com
> Tel: +1 917 945 2978
>

Heres a third vote for OpenVPN.  It might be your cheapest option, if you
already have a Linux or BSD box as your office's gateway.
By installing OpenVPN, you won't have to splurge for an appliance or
something in that vein.

Its fast and totally reliable, the way good infrastructure software should
be, and I use it for both external and wireless access.
Since using it, I don't have a single complaint.  On the contrary, only
praise.
The same software can function as either server or
client; no separate package for each.
And whenever disconnected, in client mode, it will automatically try to
reconnect in regular intervals.

Its not very hard to set up, though admittedly, the man page can be
overwhelming.
It comes with example configs.  Use them.
Those configs are enough to immediately get a small office like yours going.

The software runs on BSD, Linux and Windows (others too, perhaps, but I'm
only mentioning what I've had firsthand experience with);
you can furnish your Windows clients with the "OpenVPN GUI" (
http://openvpn.se/ ), which presents a small icon on the task bar.

If configured correctly, all a user has to do to connect to the office
VPN is right click the icon and hit "connect".
Multiple VPNs each get their own little submenu.

Good luck.