At home I have my home machine and my portable notebook networked on a 10/100 LAN. They are both running WIN98SE. The home machine has an ADSL connection with a fixed IP. When I am away I would like to use my laptop to connect to the home machine using Microsoft’s VPN (Virtual Private Network). I have installed the VPN adapter on both machines and created VPN DUN connectoids on both but I am somewhat confused as to what I need to do next.
In the portable VPN do I set it to connect to the ADSL public IP? When I try to start the VPN I get a prompt for “User Name” and “Password” but I do not know how this works because when the machines are networked at home I do not need any name or password to connect to the other machine (and that’s the way I like it at home). How do I set up the name and password?
Can someone please help me set up VPN access to my home machine using my laptop from a different location?
I don’t think the VPN software included in Win98 has VPN server functionality. In order to do that, I think you’ll need something like Windows NT Server, Windows 2000 Server, or Windows Server 2003 (or a non-microsoft VPN server).
Could you explain this a bit more because I do not understand it well. Let me explain what I understand and then you can tell me where I am wrong. This is what I understand:
Right now I have my two computers connected at home on the same network which is peer to peer. No server, all equal, equality, fraternity and all that. They send their packets around and they get their packets.
Now, what I understand is that you would make a point to point “tunnel” over the Internet and then use this connection like it was a LAN same as before: no need for server. Every page I have read seems to explain it like that.
You’re right, except that I believe most PPTP (or other VPN protocol) implementations, while point-to-point, aren’t peer-to-peer. Meaning that both ends aren’t running the same software – one is a client and one’s a server. So you need a PPTP server to connect to. So if network1 and network2 are seperated by the internet, one of them sets up a VPN server and the other uses a VPN client (like the ones built into most recent versions of windows) to connect to that server. Once that tunnel is established, the client gets an IP address on the server’s network.
I could be wrong, but I know of no way to form a tunnel between two windows VPN clients.
So it seems I already have a VPN client with win98se. What server software could I install in my home computer? (Preferably easy to install and cheap or free.)
Sailor, ntucker is correct in that WIN98 (or any of MS’s consumer/workstation OS’s) is not equipped to accept VPN connections.
I’m a computer/network tech and I set up VPNs of all types for all situations.
I know of no software that can run as a VPN server on a WIN98 computer. It’s entirely possible that someone has written one as the protocols are completely standardized. You might try doing a search on google, or check out some of the popular download sites.
Another way to accomlish the connectivity you want is to use a product like PcAnywhere. It doesn’t necessarily fall under the ‘cheap’ category, but it does give you file and remote-control access between remote computers. It works great over DSL connections, you’ll just have to be sure to open up the necessary ports on your firewall.
Rufus T. Firefly, first of all welcome to the board and thank you for using your first post to respond to me and help me out.
If I understand correctly then I have the option of getting PCAnywhere or I could also upgrade the home PC to WIN XP which does have a VPN server, right? But I would not have to upgrade the laptop? the laptop running the VPN client with WIN98SE could connect to the other machine which would be running the VPN server with Windows XP?
It looks like Windows XP pro has incoming VPN capabilities (I just went through the network setup wizard, and it seems the options are there to set it up). I’ve never tested it, so I can’t say whether it will work like any other VPN server. Also, Windows XP Home Edition probably won’t have that feature – so be careful which version you use when upgrading.
I can’t find mention of whether this feature is available on XP Home or Pro on MS’s site…and I don’t have a Home Edition to try it out on. I only know it seems to be there on Pro because I checked it out on my machine just now.
You will not need to upgrade the client computer’s OS to XP. The protocols used for VPN (PPTP and IPSEC/L2TP) are non-OS dependant. Windows 98 doesn’t support IPSEC/L2TP, but does support PPTP (which is easier to setup). Windows 2000/XP supports all popular VPN protocols. In the end, it all works just like working on a LAN, except you have to ‘dial-in’ to get access to it. All the other network features are configured the way they are on a LAN.
One other thing I failed to mention in my last reply was the possibility of using Linux as a VPN server. Probably not the best option if you don’t have a spare computer to set it up on and network to your Windows PC.