Looking for Suggestions in Network Setup

ThreeDee

ThreeDee

[H]F Junkie
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I have some family friends that run a small excavation business

They have a computer at the business , one at their house , and a computer at the son and his girlfriends(my sister) place.

They want to access files at the business (primarly quickbooks stuff) from the house and the son and girlfriends place

They will be getting adsl at the business with a static IP address and we are toying with the idea of doing a directional antenna to the house to have dsl there as well (less than a mile as the crow flies and flat open terrain)..if that doesnt work out then they will be on dial up

The son and girlfriend have dial up

The DSL modem is an ActionTec with embedded linux running on it with nat running and ability to do firewall stuff , open ports etc ..

What would be my best options as far as setting up what they need that is both easy to use and secure...? (I would obviously opt for security over ease of use tho)


[F]old|[H]ard
 
VPN that. You don't want people sniffing the traffic, even if it is line of sight, I just don't trust wireless enough.
 
this would be in Thompson Falls, MT ..population of 1400 (officially) :p

There are alot of peeps that drive around with rifles in their trucks ... no to many with laptops driving around looking for wireless networks to "sniff"

If it were a more populated area , then I wouldn't trust running a wireless setup either ..

 
You never know if there is some geeky rednecks around sniffing for some free bestiality pr0n :D

I agree with the VPN suggestion but if you say you feel safe without VPN, then try to get a strong encryption like WPA2 if possible at least.
 
Just remember, thinking that you're safe is the first step toward putting yourself in danger.

You're talking about corporate and financial information which could be disastrous if it got into the wrong hands.

I agree that VPN is the best solution for this, but if they're looking to go cheap/no IT required, they could use something like gotomypc.com (is that still around?)
 
http://www.hamachi.cc/

zero IT skill VPN

Although If your trying to do quickbooks over a slow connection it may tank.

I highly recommend the online edition for small businesses...it takes backup out of the hands of the business and all they need is a net connection anywhere to securely access there records.
 
The dial-up connection is going to be un-workable for every day VPN to the office kind of an application. Much too slow.

They need to get DSL, cable, or satellite broadband internet service at each location.

As for easy to configure VPN, that would be PPTP that uses the Windows XP client. If the Actiontec will not do that, then either setup a m0n0wall box that has PPTP VPN or you can buy something like a D-Link DFL-200 router to have an out of the box solution. You would need to put the Actiontec into bridge mode to use another router.
 
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