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I am new to this group. Seems like a great forum from I see so far. This is about VPN over cable between two sites mostly with only 6 clients at each site running windows XP or maybe 7. The clients will all be running windows. I am not sure yet if I will install Server 2008 - may not need to. Ok, that's the workstation end of thing.

I am looking at the NetGear FVS318 switch at both sites for connecting the two. I have some networking experience but not with this. So, here is wish list. Low cost, minimal latency, automatic recovery (ie; power or cable outage), and one time setup - ie; once the workstations and server(s) are set up, people don't have to do anything in terms of login to do VPN, it's just always there as if you were in a single premise and just booted up - you'd most likely only log into your windows account?

Any tips! Thanks!!! Mike

  • Your VPN should be on its own subnet, but it can hook into the AD for authentication. That's fairly easy to set up. I'm not experienced enough to flesh this out into a complete answer though. –  Oct 08 '09 at 15:14
  • This is a bit vague, what is the question exactly? What you've suggested should be able to do what you are asking. You might need to forward some ports on your router and then it is just a case of using the wizard. – JamesRyan Oct 08 '09 at 15:33

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What you are looking for is a site to site VPN. Any of the entry level firewalls (Cisco/Linksys, SonicWall, Juniper, Watchgaurd, etc) should be able to do this nicely for you. I prefer Cisco ASA series (you would want the 5505) but with your size a WRT router running DD-WRT or Tomato should be just fine as well. The NetGear you are looking at seems to be able to do this as well. The how of setting up the VPN will vary depending on which product your choose.

Once you have the site to site vpn up your users will not have to do anything special to access the remote network. The firewall will take care of the routing and encryption.

Personally I would put a windows DC at each site. It is best practice and gives you the ability to authenticate and have local documents etc even if the WAN goes down.

Also be sure to get static IPs for your internet connection.

Zypher
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  • Thank you! Great info. It did well in validating what I want to do. –  Oct 09 '09 at 01:28
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Bit late to mention it, but I've had a customer using a site-to-site vpn with two FVS318s for several years now, and it has proven very reliable.

Fentible
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