Hi LukeWe Looked at openvpn and other VPN options, but there are limitations, including the setup requirements, and issues with dynamic IP's
The solution we have allows simple remote connection from any machine, providing you have the required auth tokens.
other than the requirement for the client tohave ssh (*nix) or putty (win) installed there is no installation required clientside.
It currently does require that the server have a world accessible ssh server, but then OpenVPN also needs world accessible ports too.
There will be another option eventually for support providers to use.This option does not require open ports at either end. it uses a helper server that accepts connections from both server and client. In this case clients will be required to register with the server as "support providers" and customers will have an lsmb addon that allows them to select which provider they wish to allow access. Currently only 10% of the "support" section is written, but it leverages all of the remote access code that is all ready working.
Regards David G Luke wrote:
Wouldn't OpenVPN be a bit more robust for that application?Not that ssh is the wrong way, just that if you know the endpoints most of the time, OpenVPN gives you a more stable connection.It also has the upside of not having much issue with firewalls. Luke On Sat, 27 Mar 2010, David Godfrey wrote:Hi Richard, Please contact me off list. I have a set of scripts that should allow you do "painlessly" make remote connections via an ssh tunnel. Eventually I will publish these scripts at http://www.sbts.com.au/lsmb/addons.php but for now there is a bit too much modification required for any specific client to make that a good idea. We have been using these scripts for quite some time and they work well. Personally I would never open the lsmb server directly to the web, it is fairly trivial to do the access via a tunnel which is generally far more secure. Also a tunnel allows you to use compression, which can speed up transfers on slow connections. Regards David G beamends wrote:Hi All, not strictly a LSMB issue..... I'm trying to login from a remote location (i.e. the other side of our router), but after the "small" login screen that usually vanishes to be replaced by the real LSMB login screen Apache throws up "Internal Server Error". I've been here before but for the life of can't remember what it is that I should be configuring! Sorry for being in thick mode - it's Friday, nearly home time and it's been a long week! Thanks in advance, Richard