[Cialug] VPN for a client

[Stuart Thiessen]

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Hi! I have never dealt with a VPN before, but I have two situations 
with deaf non-profits that have a lot of remote board members and could 
benefit from having some centralized stores of information. I think 
that they could benefit from a VPN type scenario.

In both cases, I am dealing with several individuals (Windows users, of 
course) whose knowledge of computing is limited to very general purpose 
situations (wordprocessing, email, etc.) Some, however, are quite 
savvy, but I want to make sure the less savvy individuals have access. 
My goal would be to figure out a way to set up the VPN with the least 
amount of finangling and equipment on their side but still allow them 
to access information on a server as if it were in their local network. 
I'm thinking about shared database access and shared organizational 
electronic files as being key benefits for them. They can continue to 
use their Windows parlance to share information, but they can save the 
$$ by doing it with Linux.

I could do things web-based, but with all the security stuff going on, 
I'd like to reduce the exposure as much as possible for their access to 
their private organizational files. Nearly all of them have DSL or 
Cable High Speed Access. Only a few have dialup.

I have done some reading on the web about this, but I always like to 
discuss with people who have experience with this. If you'd be willing 
to share some of that, I'd appreciate it.

On the other hand, if you have some alternative ideas, I'd like to hear 
it.  Moving them all to Linux (while a great idea) is probably not on 
the achievable list (though I did manage to convince one board member 
to give it a try and gave him a copy of Knoppix.)

Thanks,

Stuart
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