Re: Special case of VPN : how can I do this ?

[Kevin Buhr <buhr@telus.net>]

Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@lucas-nussbaum.net> writes:
> 
> I'd like to setup a VPN between my own computer and a computer in my
> university, on which, of course, I don't have root access.

You could look at the "slirp" package.  The "slirp" server runs with
normal user privileges on the remote machine and mimics a PPP server
for the benefit of a "pppd" daemon running on the local machine.

The usual way of setting it up would be to give your "pppd" an
appropriate "pty" configuration line to automagically SSH to the
remote machine and launch "slirp" through the resulting connection.
My guess for the right "pty" line is:

        pty "ssh -t -e none remotehost slirp ppp"

Because "slirp" only runs as a normal user process, there are limits
to what it can do, of course, but for web browsing it will probably
work quite nicely.

Be careful of your routing, too.  Add an explicit route for the remote
Solaris machine through your "real" network interface before changing
your default route to the new tunnel interface (or letting PPP do it).
Otherwise, the first packet you send will be tunnelled back through
the tunnel in an infinite loop.  Oops.

Googling for "ssh slirp tunnel" might help.

-- 
Kevin <buhr@telus.net>