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I want to enable secure and scalable remote access to the resources on my company's small LAN (<10 devices). The network includes a number of laptops, a network storage drive, server and a rotating collection of "propriety PC's".

Within the local network, we remote to the "propriety machines" from our laptops using XManager 4 (NetSarang Computer, Inc). The problem lies with gaining remote access to the "propriety PC's". Installing and configuring VPN clients on these machines is not an option. In my limited understanding of the application of VPN, this then disqualify them from being accessed remotely, because they are not viewable by the VPN server. Is this true? Or does this only limit my choice of VPN services vendor?

I had hoped that VPN would provide me, as the name suggests, a virtual place within the LAN, enabling me the same access to all resources as if I were physically connected, regardless of configuration of other LAN enabled devices. So once having created a VPN connection to the server, I could start a remote connection to a "propriety PC" using its LAN IP (or a variant). Have I been misled?

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From what I can see, XManager is not a vpn solution, it just provides X over ssh forwarding (albeit from Windows as well which is interesting). Does each PC that you connect to have a public IP address, or is there something else involved in this scenario to gain access remotely? – Paul Nov 22 '11 at 3:01
I have set up Neo Router as a VPN server. This doesnt give a full solution however. There is a client provided that requires installation. I dont require a solution specific to a vendor however, so any other VPN server that does the task will suit. – Shaun Nov 22 '11 at 3:04
Ah, a p2p VPN. If you were at the site where a "proprietary pc" was located, can you remote access from within the network? Ie, RDP to Windows? If so, there isn't any reason why you could do this via the VPN, you would just use one of the machines you can access over the VPN to access the one where you cannot install the client. – Paul Nov 22 '11 at 3:14
1. Yes, we can remote access a "proprietary pc"from within the network. 2. Our server will be set up as an "access point". So with this in place I should be able to act as if I was on site? Im pretty sure Neo router wont let me. Any other vendor solutions? – Shaun Nov 22 '11 at 3:42
If you can remote to a machine on site that can remote to the "proprietary pc" then you should be able to do this over the VPN. Are you saying you haven't tried yet? – Paul Nov 22 '11 at 3:59
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How about this?:

RemoteHost-->VPN-Accessible-PC-->ProprietaryPC

Also, nxserver might be of use in this case.

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You want to setup a VPN server on the company LAN, which is also accessible from the Internet. External machines would use a VPN client to connect to the VPN server, and the VPN server would forward packets to other machines on the company LAN. The only catch is that you need the response packets from the LAN machines to go to the VPN server -- this can either be done by configuring the router, or configuring all the machines (the former being easier). This could all be done with OpenVPN.

(LAN machines) 10.0.0.0/24 <-switch-> 10.0.0.2/24 (VPN server) 192.168.0.1/24 <-encrypted tunnel-> 192.168.0.10/24 (VPN client)

In this scenario the LAN machines would see packets coming from 192.168.0.10.

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