Windows Small Business Server 2003 VPN

[SteveDuk]

Hello,

I have introduced 4 months ago a Windows Small Business Server 2003 to my company and am now looking at allowing access to the remote web workplace over the internet. However I am only 19 and in charge of all the IT in my company. I have tried openign up ports on my firewall (Netgear Fr114p) and also within the Server config.
Could anyone give me some advice or has anyone managed to do this with similiar firewalls etc...
If at least I would like to be able to allow the employees to access the e-mail over the internet.
Respond here or e-mail to Steve.Dunmall@rileymclaren.co.uk

Kind regards,
Steve

 

[timsayles1]

Well, you can do one or two things. You can open port 1723 and map it to the ip address of your server. After you do that, you will have to install remote routing and access in the server. It is pretty easy on 2003 as it has a wizard. It will use windows authentiation to authroize the VPN's. I have been using this for several years.

The other option is to get a gateway/router with VPN options. I just purchased a sonicwall TZ170 to do this. This is EXCELLENT. IT allows complete firewall control, routing, NAT, and VPN. This + of this is it is more secure and take the load off your sever.

I think DLink sells a gateway router that will do the same job.

Hope that helped.

PS - VPN is cool. Good Luck!

 

[SteveDuk]

Thanks, will give that a go now. Dont have the budget for another firewall, I should have really looked at VPNs in the first place however I will make do with what I have.
I've opened port 1723 and mapped that to the Server, just going to setup the remote routing and then I will let you know how i got on.
Steve

 

[dburniston]

Have a look at Smoothwall Express firewall. It doesn't require much of a PC to run on (we're using a Pentium 3 300MHz, but any Pentium will work) and it does VPN, NAT and a number of other things. There is no cost and there is a very active support forum.

http://www.smoothwall.org

...Dave

 

[SteveDuk]

have looked at smooth firewall, is an interesting topic but as I have already purchased a dedicated hardware firewall I figure I may aswell try and get that to work.
However, not having any joy. I cant seem to even establish a connection via the IP. I've set it up to respond to pings etc, but no joy. Both the modem and the firewall have port 1723 open and both point it to the server. where am I going wrong.
from within the network I can establish a connection to the IP fine. But not from the outside.