Project Help Needed:Setting up a residential VPN

Posts: 115 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 115

As a 'fun' project, I would like to setup a VPN at home in order to 'tunnel' into my home network to hotsyncing my Palm device wireless over the internet w/ one of my home computers running Win2KServer - I am asking for some help on this one as I am getting into something way above my head - but I am willing to do some work in learning.

Basically, here is my current setup:
-------------------------------------------

oooooooo
ooooooo
oooo
Internet (ComcastCable)
I
MotorolaSB5100modem
I
LinksysRT31P2
I
DLinkDI624WirelessRouter . . . . . . .D
I I I
A B C

where:
o A, B, C are computers hardwired to DI624Router
o D is a wireless computer (wireless-G)

Notes:
a) computer A has Win2KServer installed.
b) my Palm data is located on machine A.
c) Comcast cable running DHCP
d) running peer-to-peer network (vs. domain, active directory)

From what I have read, I can maybe utilize the VPN software on my Win2KServer machine A OR I can also purchase a basic VPN-Router to replace my DLinkDI624. Once I have all this setup, I can get a VPN client to access my network.

Besides hotsyncing remotely, I would of course like the ability to access computers on my LAN remotely once 'tunneled in" (see, I learned something : ) )

Any advice on how to proceed? Cookbook instructions are welcomed!

BTW, I would like to keep cost to a minimum and a basic setup is all I am looking for. Nothing too fancy.

Thanks in advance.

Posts: 164

[quote="winger"]As a 'fun' project, I would like to setup a VPN at home in order to 'tunnel' into my home network to hotsyncing my Palm device wireless over the internet w/ one of my home computers running Win2KServer - I am asking for some help on this one as I am getting into something way above my head - but I am willing to do some work in learning.

.[/quote

http://www.uk.research.att.com/archive/vnc/index.html

is an old program that I use for storing files on my LAN, but can also be accessed through your browser for remote use. I don't know about the palm, but it is cross-platform compatible. The program resides on the home <server> machine, which asks for a password from the remote <client> machine, and downloads a JAVA applet. (from server to the client> All you need to know is the IP of the machine you want to access. (The program must be running on the server; no software required on the client) I merely run ICQ on that <server> machine in order to determine the IP. (open ICQ on the client, determine server IP from ICQ)

The remote machine calls the home <server> machine using the browser with a term such as :http://192.168.1.2:5802/

The VNC servers also contain a small web server. If you connect to this with a web browser, you can download the Java version of the viewer, and use this to view the server. You can then see your desktop from any Java-capable browser! (unless you are using a proxy to connect to the web). The server listens for HTTP connections on port 5800+display number. So to view display 2 on machine '192.168.1.2', you would point your web browser at:
http:/192.168.1.2:5802/
The applet will prompt you for your password, and should then display the desktop.
********
this is an old program, but free and great for learning on your LAN for storage, etc.

Currently available programs include Tight VNC, Realvnc and numerous others.

Sorry, I can't advise on router setup, but info should be in the instructions for whichever program you decide to use.

Pepperoni

Posts: 115 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Aug 12, 2004 Posts: 115

since my PC (computer A in my drawing) is two layers deep into my LAN, how do I get to it? From the external computer, should I need to get to the IP given to my cable modem (MotorolaS5100) buy my ISP (Comcast)? then how do I route the communication thru the LinksysRT31P2 then through the router DLinkDI624 then to the correct PC (A in my diagram)?

Posts: 164 · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2005 1:32 am Post subject:

winger wrote:

since my PC (computer A in my drawing) is two layers deep into my LAN, how do I get to it? From the external computer, should I need to get to the IP given to my cable modem (MotorolaS5100) buy my ISP (Comcast)? then how do I route the communication thru the LinksysRT31P2 then through the router DLinkDI624 then to the correct PC (A in my diagram)?

You are pretty much "on your own" as far as router config is concerned. I would try out the VNC on your LAN to get it running, and then read the FAQ and other documentaation for the ap, and your router manual. Just load the server to one machine, and access from another on your LAN.

Sorry I can't help more from here.
See the FAQ at the link below.

Pepperoni

Will VNC work through a firewall?
It depends on your firewall, and whether you want to access a server inside your firewall from elsewhere, or a server outside your firewall from inside.

Generally firewalls are designed to prevent incoming connections except to certain well-known machines and ports. If you can configure these to include your VNC server, then you will be able to access it from anywhere in the world. There is a good argument to be made for the fact that VNC is less of a security risk than X, so if your site doesn't allow X in or out it may still allow VNC.

Many modern firewalls will allow outgoing connections initiated from inside, so you can often access servers on outside machines. It is straightforward, for example, to recompile the viewer source to include SOCKS support, or to make other special arrangements. See the contribs page.

It's a pity that Java within a browser doesn't automatically use SOCKS if the browser is configured to use it. There's probably Java SOCKS support out there somewhere...

If your internet access is through a router which does Network Address Translation, you may be able to configure the router to redirect particular incoming ports to particular machines. So you could run WinVNC with a display number of 0 on machine snoopy, and with display 1 on machine woodstock, then set your router to send port 5900 to snoopy and 5901 to woodstock. See below for information on the other port numbers used by VNC.

Q53 Which TCP/IP ports does VNC use?
A VNC server listens on two ports. The exact port numbers depend on the VNC display number, because a single machine may run multiple servers. The most important one is 59xx, where xx is the display number. The VNC protocol itself runs over this port. So for most PC servers, the port will be 5900, because they use display 0 by default.

In addition, VNC servers normally have a small and very restricted web server built in, which allows you to connect a browser to them and use the Java viewer. This runs on port 58xx. Note that this is the HTTP port used for downloading pages and applets, but once the applet is running it uses 59xx for VNC just like any other viewer.

The servers can be changed to listen on other ports if, for any reason, these are not suitable for you. See the server's documentation for more details. Most of the viewers, if given a display number larger than 99, will interpret it as a direct port number and will not add 5900. See also the next question.

If you are running a viewer in 'listening' mode, where it accepts connections initiated by the server, it will listen for incoming VNC on port 5500.

http://www.uk.research.att.com/archive/vnc/faq.html#q52

Posts: 164

winger wrote:

As a 'fun' project, I would like to setup a VPN at home in order to 'tunnel' into my home network to hotsyncing my Palm device wireless over the internet w/ one of my home computers running Win2KServer - I am asking for some help on this one as I am getting into something way above my head - but I am willing to do some work in learning.

I'm not sure VNC is exactly what you need. Direct file transfers are twitchy. I got around this using shared folders and Mapping the remote drives on my LAN to access files. The VNC was fine for dragging files on the remote machine into the shared folders for access. I also used it to retrieve files remotely using email to ship the files.

Check your PALM manual..... there may be an easier simpler way to connect. (especially if you can find out which ports are used.)

VNC is an old program, archived but not as functional as newer aps.
TightVNC and Real VNC are two of the most popular.

Pepperoni