[clue-tech] VPN over Internet

[David L. Anselmi]

dennisjperkins at comcast.net wrote:
> I want to be able to VPN into someone's computer over the Internet.
> Thanks to Jef Barnhart, I have been using www.logmein.com, but I am
> wondering what alternatives others have tried and recommend.

Well, I wouldn't say VPN I think.  If you mean VPN then OpenVPN is the 
way to go.  For example: I need to run an app at home that connects to a 
database at the office (oh, and my shared folders etc).  That's what I 
use OpenVPN for and I wouldn't use anything else.

I read the Linux VPNs book and OpenVPN makes most of what it discusses 
obsolete.  SSH tunneling is still good for many things though, 
especially when you already use it and think, "Oh rats--I need to be on 
*that* box to (get around NAT, whatever)."

PPTP in the MS world has been replaced by IPSec, I think, and that's 
what Cisco uses.  So if you have to work with one of those then there 
are IPSec solutions, but I've never found one that was easy (especially 
since the VPN admins can't answer config questions about Linux).

If you want to log in to a computer, I would say remote desktop or 
remote login, not VPN.  So you probably already know those: rdesktop, 
VNC, SSH, and now it turns out there are some web based things like 
logmein.  There's a thread on that starting at:

http://archive.lug.boulder.co.us/Week-of-Mon-20090119/037611.html

I think SSH should be sufficient unless you're talking Windows (wrong 
list then, eh? ;-)  But what requirements do you have that aren't fully 
met by logmein?

Dave