LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Although I have a decent knowledge of home networking, I would not know where to begin with the following:

I have two sites with a possible 3 that I want to interconnect to make it seem like there all on a LAN. I understand that this would be setup as a WAN but how/where would I begin. What extra equipment would I need or etc.

I basically wanted to find out if it is worth it just for kicks or if it is something I should avoid.

I am wanting to have all of the computers on a WAN type of network to share resources (One central shared drive), Logon via my domain server and access internal resources without me having to open a bunch of ports up.

If you need any additional info on my current setup please feel free to ask.

Leg Humper Joined: 16 Jan 2002 Posts: 5410

Yuo can use routers that are capabel fo this. We use Netopia (R5300 ?) routers and are able to establish dedicated VPN tunnels to each of our sites, so that it appears as one network topology and is managed by one AD forest. These are T-1 routers, we used to do it over ADSL also wiht the Netopia routers still.

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2003 5:21 pm Post subject:

quijbe wrote:
Yuo can use routers that are capabel fo this. We use Netopia (R5300 ?) routers and are able to establish dedicated VPN tunnels to each of our sites, so that it appears as one network topology and is managed by one AD forest. These are T-1 routers, we used to do it over ADSL also wiht the Netopia routers still.

Thanks for the info quijbe! Although the current price of the routers is a bit out of my reach for just something to expierement with....I will know what I need to do if I ever get serious about it (Small Business or etc.)

One quick question though...and I think I already know the answer. With those routers, would I need a static IP address for each location there at? Thats the only way I could see them connecting to each other.

Leg Humper Joined: 16 Jan 2002 Posts: 5410

Yes you would need a static public IP address if connecting over the internet. AT&T also offers dedicated lines over their own AGNS network.

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2003 8:43 pm Post subject:

One of my clients has been using the Linksys VPN products with a mix of Win9x, 2k and XP for about a year and a half now with no problems. They're fairly inexpensive units, and depending on which you get, have 3 or more VPN channels available.

You'll need one VPN for each segment you want to connect, so in your case, you'll need at least three.

And to confirm what quijbe said, you need static IPs to do it.