Setting up a VPN at an office and home for a client

[omega pwned]

I've done freelance PC building/repair for quite some time now, but I've never really done any networking jobs. Basically, I have a client that wants a virtual private network setup at her office to her home. Now I have meddled around with this kind of stuff before with my dads office setup, but I still have some reservations about it.

Now as far as I know, both the home and the office have a basic wired/wireless setup (I.E. MODEM -> ROUTER -> COMPUTERS, nothing fancy). Both computers I believe are running Windows XP Pro (The home might be running XP home). I am not sure what sort of security measures are being taken, but its probably safe to assume there is some sort of encryption (most likely basic WEP key and maybe Windows/Norton/McAffee firewall.) if that matters. I don't have 100% certainty on these things because I won't be able to get a hold of her til Sunday or Monady (out of town.)

In short I have a number of questions regarding the setup.

1. For the OFFICE, I take it that I will have to set that one up as a VPN host, and that requires XP Pro/Vista Premium/Server 2003/some sort of third party VPN client?

2. I should be able to connect to the VPN from the HOME computer regardless of the OS? (assuming its NT based?)

3. Is it necessary to assign static IP's to each computer in order to connect?

4. Will I have to change anything in the router to get it to work (I may not have full access to it, as the office is shared with 2 other partners and I am not sure if my client is the owner of the router)?

5. Will any sort of Firewall/Internet Security suites tamper with the process?

6. And how secure is VPN? Since this is a business will I need to take any extra security precautions to protect the network?

7. What is the price most people charge for such a thing?

I probably have over 9000 other questions at the moment that I can't think of... any help would certainly be appreciated. and for the record, I have read a number of articles on the web and from here about it, yet the answers to these question have been nebulous and vague.

 

[CGR]

Is this something that she needs on all the time? Or are we talking about the occasional connection to her home machine?

If its the latter, I would probably setup something like gotomypc.com. Its easier than setting up a permanent connection and good for occasional use.

 

[Mr.Guvernment]

ddo they need VPN? could they not do remote desktop? do they need access directly to just one computer or resources on the entire network ?


1. Yes, you have the host running on the side hosting the data

2. Correct

3. through VPN no, because you are connecting to the network, netbios should work, so they can use computer names to get access to resources

4. you would need to forward the proper port for a VPN system, if the router is not doing the VPN you would need to do the port forwards to the internal server that is hosting the VPN service.

5. See #4, you would need to allow proper traffic in and out.

6. VPN is encrypted and darn secure as far as i know...

7. no idea.


my answers can probably be defined better by someone with a little more experience.

 

[CGR]

His client wants to access her home machine from work, not the other way around.

 

[omega pwned]

thanks so much for the quick responses. i might have jumped the gun on this as i haven't been able to speak with her but for a brief few moments about it before she left on vacation to be honest i'm not exactly sure what all she needs it for. i get the feeling however that remote desktop will be more than enough for what she needs. she probably just wants to be able to access/edit/transfer her files from home which can all be done with remote desktop, correct?

 

[Incesticide]

For this sort of application I highly recommend Hamachi (someone already mentioned gotomypc, same technology and company).

Set up a shortcut for remote desktop with the Hamachi IP of the remote computer and her credentials already plugged in. Set up shortcut to the remote network location so she can access her files (E.G. \\hamachiphere\share), make sure the username/password is the same on both computers or you will need to setup a script to map a drive with the net use command to make it work reliably.

 

[omega pwned]

so i actually had the most random encounter with my client, i just started a new job at on the border and she showed up for lunch lol. so we got to discuss it a little bit and she said she does want to go with VPN because she has tried all the gotomypc type stuff and she didn't like it too much. im going to visit the office to see her setup tomorrow so hopefully i'll be able to figure it out from there, expect lots of posts tomorrow lol