Jim Ford wrote: > It would be convenient for me to be able to access my Linux machine on > the network at the school where I work, from my XP machine at home > through my Bering Leaf box. Without flogging through the many Openvpn > docs or joining the mailing list, I thought I'd ask the question here, > as several Leaf users seem to be doing a similar thing. > > As I'll be going through the school server to enter the internal > network, I'll probably need the network admins to make some allowance > for this in their server configuration. What would they need to do > before I can get started on either end of a VPN? > If they can't or won't do what is required, then VPN would obviously be > a non-starter! Please don't get me wrong - I can surely understand wanting to just get things done, without having to wade through tons of docs. But there are two things you should be aware of: - I don't know what kind of school you're talking about, at many schools as well as businesses that I know, "circumventing" the in-place security to make a connection to another net is a reason to get fired. So, I'd be rather surprised if the admins simply agree to setting this up - unless they have a "home office" policy in place already, that happens to use OpenVPN. That is, unless you're the headmaster or another important part of the administration ;-) - It actually helps to know what one is doing, instead of just following the advice from a mailing-list. Chances are, you'll run into problems (no matter how much people try to give you precise instructions). If you don't know what exactly you're doing, troubleshooting will be a mess.
Regarding what you'll need to tell the admins - it depends on what kind of setup you have at your school. If it's a "proxy only environment", they might not have to do anything, since OpenVPN can operate through HTTP proxies just fine (at least it did, the last time I checked). It'll be slower, but it should work. But please, only do that after you've talked to the admin in charge of the proxy server, since that kind of thing _will_ show up in the log files, and any competent admin will figure out that something strange is going on rather quickly. If you have a direct connection to the net that is protected by a firewall blocking inbound and outbound traffic, ask them to allow UDP traffic on port 1194 (or 5000, if you're using an old version of OpenVPN) - or any other UPD port>1024 - you can set which port to use in the config file. If they don't block outgoing traffic at all, they might not have to do anything - as I said, what exactly needs to be done depends on the actual setup at your school. I hope that helps (at least a little) Martin ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier. Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ leaf-user mailing list: leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-user Support Request -- http://leaf-project.org/
