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Linnets
Jul 2005

Rubbery

How to connect to office network from home

My brother lives too far away from the office to be able to get in every day. He used to be out on the road most of the time seeing customers, but we recently employed someone who is actually quite good at the job to do it.

So now he's got more time on his hands he wants to be able to access the offce network from home to do administrative stuff.

We run 2 servers, one is a windows 2000 server and the other is a windows 2003 server. The whole network accesses the outside world through a Draytek router which acts as our gateway. The windows 2000 server acts as the dns.

I have managed to set up a VPN through the router which he connected to. Also he managed to see the network, but he couldn't access anything on it. Something to do with access rights I believe. (I will try to flesh this out a bit tomorrow)

So what I want to know is what is the best / easiest / cheapest way to access the network so that he can telework? And can someone hold my hand through setting it up?

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06-19-2008 04:59 PM

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MrEMann
Oct 2004

The One, The Only

install logmein on his workstation and let him go at it.

logmein.com

they have a free package

it works

even through firewalls and nat

then he can work as if he was sitting at the office, full access to everything without mucking about.

quick

easy

painless

like dying in your sleep.

night night

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06-19-2008 08:06 PM

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Vampire
Jan 2005

Administrator

quote:
Originally posted by eljefeoscuro
logmein.com

Came to post this. The chief had beaten me to it.

I even managed to use it to get to my home PC from work (and they have content filters, layers of firewalls, proxy servers etc).

Admittedly it's only an RDP-type solution and not a full VPN solution but it does the job... and you did ask for cheap (it's FREE!).

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06-19-2008 08:12 PM

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askou
May 2008

Junior Member

Can it bypass websense?

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06-20-2008 12:23 AM

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Linnets
Jul 2005

Rubbery

Fan fucking tastic I'll give it a go tomorrow. Thanks

::Edit::

Shit - I take it this is one of those solutions that requires his pc to be in the office, switched on and logged into the network. If thats the case it might not be exactly what I'm looking for. It might just have to do though. He is using a laptop that he carries around with him. Its the same machine that he wants to use both in the office and at home.

Last edited by Linnets on 06-20-2008 at 12:33 AM

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06-20-2008 12:30 AM

MrEMann
Oct 2004

The One, The Only

then you are back to VPN, terminal connections or the like.

have fun

not painless

and not quiet at all

kind of like dying in an exploding tanker accident.

(ok, I exaggerate to clarify, but I had to keep the analogy.)

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06-20-2008 03:51 AM

Linnets
Jul 2005

Rubbery

Haha thanks for the encouraging words.

I actually got him accessing the network shares! Fuck knows what I did, but he's on.

Although browsing directories through explorer windows is fast enough opening files is going to be a bit like pulling teeth I think. We've only got about 40Kbps up at best through ADSL here so a 5mb Excel file is gonna take a while to open.

I can't imagine one of these remote desktop solutions would improve matters on this front? Afterall our max upload is our max upload.

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06-20-2008 11:06 AM

olskoolfife
Mar 2005

AWRITE FANNY BAWS ?

quote:
Originally posted by askou
Can it bypass websense?

under internet options
connections tab
lan settings
untick the proxy server box

I used to browse through everything I wanted and we had that websense crap at work.

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06-20-2008 12:50 PM

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askou
May 2008

Junior Member

quote:
Originally posted by olskoolfife
under internet options
connections tab
lan settings
untick the proxy server box

I used to browse through everything I wanted and we had that websense crap at work.

Thank you SO MUCH!!!!

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06-20-2008 01:41 PM

MrEMann
Oct 2004

The One, The Only

quote:
Originally posted by Linnets
Haha thanks for the encouraging words.

I actually got him accessing the network shares! Fuck knows what I did, but he's on.

Although browsing directories through explorer windows is fast enough opening files is going to be a bit like pulling teeth I think. We've only got about 40Kbps up at best through ADSL here so a 5mb Excel file is gonna take a while to open.

I can't imagine one of these remote desktop solutions would improve matters on this front? Afterall our max upload is our max upload.

The difference is that with a service such as logmein, you are only transmitting a picture. The work is all being done on the host machine (the one at work) so that it is nearly as fast to open and edit as it would be sitting at the office.

Glad you got the VPN part working! wasnt too bad, eh?

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06-20-2008 10:27 PM

Linnets
Jul 2005

Rubbery

quote:
Originally posted by eljefeoscuro
The difference is that with a service such as logmein, you are only transmitting a picture. The work is all being done on the host machine (the one at work) so that it is nearly as fast to open and edit as it would be sitting at the office.

Glad you got the VPN part working! wasnt too bad, eh?

Oh right. In that case I might give him a pc at work that can stay on or get switched on in the mornings. Then he can just carry his laptop around with him and use it wherever he can get a connection.

Thanks.

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06-21-2008 11:01 AM

Vampire
Jan 2005

Administrator

quote:
Originally posted by olskoolfife
under internet options
connections tab
lan settings
untick the proxy server box

I used to browse through everything I wanted and we had that websense crap at work.

That solution does work in some companies but requires that your PC has direct access onto the Internet. If your firewall/Internet team are any good they won't allow that.

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06-21-2008 12:59 PM

Linnets
Jul 2005

Rubbery

Heh - Its a family firm. I am the one of the family and the MD. The VCDQ computer help forum is my IT department!

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06-21-2008 01:48 PM

Vampire
Jan 2005

Administrator

Oh yeah, that's fine. I was talking more about major corporations really. No offense intended.

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06-21-2008 05:03 PM

Neversoft
May 2002

Admin?

quote:
Originally posted by Linnets
Heh - Its a family firm. I am the one of the family and the MD. The VCDQ computer help forum is my IT department!

The bill is in the post, mark all cheques "FAO: Neversoft" but leave the payee section blank... I... erm... we... also accept Paypal, cash and brothel vouchers.

ELJ is right, instead of dragging those files across the network to your local PC, simply have a remote PC doing the hard work and connect to that via Logmein or VNC (although Logmein is far easier if you know cock all about firewalls and it's harder to leave your system insecure). Better still, Logmein supports multiple PCs and if you get the paid service (it's cheap) you can still transfer files and do other funky stuff.

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06-21-2008 06:35 PM