Access from Home (Staff Laptops)

[GRitchie]

Hello,

I am wondering how everybody else allows Staff access from home?

 

Currently we use a VPN system using Forti-Client, however in the past have used Robocopy etc.

 

The problem with Robocopy was, people would close the CMD prompt window, or it would take waaaay too long to run?

 

The problem with the VPN is, showing people how to do it, relying on them doing it and it's such an effort to do to have to work from home!

 

 

Any other methods other people are using?

Cheers!

Edited September 14, 2014 by GRitchie

[synaesthesia]

Home Access Plus. We have access to the forticlient, and setting up an app for them via the forti ssl client is easy. You could provide them shortcuts to download from a secure location maybe which point to the shared areas once they're connected?

[GRitchie]

Home Access Plus. We have access to the forticlient, and setting up an app for them via the forti ssl client is easy. You could provide them shortcuts to download from a secure location maybe which point to the shared areas once they're connected?

 

Just had a look over that Home Access Plus, looks okay but I know they won't be happy having to go online to be able to access their documents.

They don't enjoy a 'change from the norm' that's the issue!

[SYNACK]

Can you get one server to Windows Server 2012 or above, DirectAccess is THE answer to this.

[GRitchie]

Can you get one server to Windows Server 2012 or above, DirectAccess is THE answer to this.

 

Without sounding an idiot, can you give me a quick description of how this works? :-)

[SYNACK]

Without sounding an idiot, can you give me a quick description of how this works? :-)

 

I can give you a quick summary, it is transparent VPN over SSL pushed out via group policy, if the laptop has access to ssl over an internet connection at all it will transparently make two tunnels. One tunnel for computer/pre-logon traffic like policies and software installs and another for user data. The user does nothing, but they have transparent access to internal resources like shared drives and intranet pages.

 

Bit of a pain to set up and way more of one if using 2008 R2 rather than one of the 2012 varients but a nice bit of software. Supported in Windows 7 (Pro I think) and above.

[GRitchie]

Anyone else got any other methods?

(bump)

[Roberto]

Terminal Server Gateway. Essentially allows users to connect over a ssl VPN to terminal servers on site.

Essentially a precursor to Direct Access.

[witch]

@bossman has a remote access system which works perfectly 24/7. I don't know what it is though

[GRitchie]

@bossman has a remote access system which works perfectly 24/7. I don't know what it is though

 

Any chance you could link it?

Sorry, can't find it! :-)

[Haptic]

+1 for Microsoft Intune

 

Joe

[edutech4schools]

All my schools use remote desktop gateway, gives the user the same desktop as being onsite with all the mapped drives and even printers.

[win]

It's old but you can try DirectAccess with windows server 2008r2. It works well with windows 7 users and will still be supported until 2020

 

Microsoft DirectAccess: The ugly truth | Windows - InfoWorld

[Gibbo]

I can recommend this solution:

 

SalamanderSoft Limited - My Documents & My Shared Documents Web Parts : Access to your home folder and shares through SharePoint

[localzuk]

We use RDS Web Gateway here, which connects to an RDS server for staff to use. Future plan is to move to Direct Access but its not a priority at the moment.