Cassiano Leal wrote:
You just say 'VPN', which is becoming a generic term for any kind of remote access protocol. Do you actually mean a VPN such as OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP or IPSec, or do you mean a remote desktop system such as provided by X, Windows RDP or Citrix? The default Windows true VPN, obtained without any third-party software or certificate configuration, is PPTP.Hi list, I would like to know if it is possible to achieve what I am trying to. Here's the situation.. In my work I have a few tools that only work on Windows. Apart from that, to hook to the company's VPN I need some proprietary tools that again only run on Windows. To work around these issues I have installed Win XP on a VM using VirtualBox. This way I can use most stuff on Debian and the few tools that are Win-only I run inside the VM. The problem is that I need to work from home sometimes and, again, the VPN only works on Windows. I can use the VPN on the VM all right, but wanted to be able to hook my Debian network to the VPN that's running on Windows. The VM's network is set to bridge mode, which means that it connects directly to the router and has its own LAN IP. It is using the same interface as Debian (the wifi card in this case), but they have different IP addresses and can talk to each other. I even set up an SSH server on the VM and could connect to it from Debian. The problem seems to be that when I connect Windows to the VPN it grabs a VPN IP address and changes the routing table. From that point on I cannot talk to the Windows machine from Debian anymore. Does anybody have any idea how could I achieve VPN connectivity on Debian in this scenario?
One important use of a true VPN is to connect to a secure Internet proxy from a physical location in an insecure network, such as a public Wi-Fi facility. In this case, it is necessary for all traffic from the client to pass through the proxy once the VPN is open, and to facilitate this, Windows clients have a tickbox in the VPN configuration called 'Use default gateway on remote server' or something similar. This is selected by default.
If what you are using really is a Windows VPN, then look for this tickbox in the configuration dialog box and untick it. The Windows client will then only route traffic intended for the remote LAN through the VPN. Make sure, as always with routed networks, that physical network addresses at both ends of the VPN are different. By default, the VPN itself bridges from the client VPN endpoint to the remote VPN server, but routes between the client's physical LAN and that VPN endpoint.
Some information which you may not have and which may extend your options:-Windows XP Professional and Vista Business (or higher) workstations can be remotely controlled using Remote Desktop Protocol. If your workplace has an unused machine running one of these operating systems (or a Terminal Server), either Linux or any version of Windows may be used as a client to login remotely. This uses a single TCP port, unlike the Windows VPNs which use an additional IP protocol, and can be tunnelled over SSH where a remote server exists. It is also (recent versions) considered secure enough to work directly across the Internet.
-Linux has a client which can connect to a Windows PPTP VPN server. This can be used to operate web-based software on the remote LAN, to access files, or to tunnel RDP if the company has a policy not to allow RDP directly from the Net.
-- Joe