How to link 2 sites with VPN

[MarkB]

I'm looking for advice on setting up a VPN to link up a remote site to the school network, we have 2 units on an industrial estate on the other side of the town for Engineering and Construction courses, one of these units has a room of computers in with an internet connection, we have locked the machines down with Windows SteadyState but this is causing some problems, for filtering we have a linux based router/firewall/proxy system running (similar to smoothwall can't remember the name), unfortunately the only way to change settings on the linux box (filtering ones mainly) is to physically go to the unit, due to the fact the box uses an older version of dansguardian I cant just copy the filter lists from the main proxy here and the kids have now found ways around the filter. The only real solution I can think of is a VPN that allows us to connect the machines back to the main school network so they are like any other school machine and get their internet feed through the schools proxy.

Ideally I would like to do this with out needing to spend any more money, I think I can do this using one of the Windows 2003 servers at school but I am not quite sure as to what I need to be looking at.

We have:

At school
2 x Windows 2003 R2 servers
Several Linux boxes (various distros)
10Mb/s (soon to be 30Mb/s) internet connetion provided by SWGfL

At remote Site
BT Bussiness ADSL connection (not sure of speed) with BT supplied router
Linux box running internet gateway specific distro

[Jona]

VPN might be the best solution, but surely it should be possible to remote into your linux box using ssh or similar....

Cheers
Jona

[MarkB]

Yep thats a possibility, but we are having several other problems that would be resolved by having the machines as part of the domain. It would also be useful to be able to access the student machines with our copy of ABTutor control. Also as the linux box runs an older version of dansguardian its not very easy to keep its filter lists in sync with the main proxy in school. Also the kids are just using a single student account a the unit so we have no way of linking them to any activity.

[Jona]

Windows server 2003 can act as a VPN server see: http://technet2.microsoft.com/window....mspx?mfr=true

It should be possible if you have a half decent linux firewall / router at the remote site to connect to this as a client (firewall holes, etc allowing).

Cheers
Jona

[tom_newton]

2 words... "Use SmoothWall".

Long answer...
All versions of SmoothWall support some sort of site-to-site VPN. If you're on a tight budget, Express (www.smoothwall.org) is Free, and will probably do everything you want, as well as replacing your existing "roll your own" firewall. If you want something with a few more advanced features and full support - we can offer a range of commercial solutions as well.

3rd answer - you could always roll-your own with FreeS/WAN but you might find it less than fun