I realized as I started writing this article that I have been playing with VPN and routers for a LONG time. Amazing how 10 years can just disappear into the rear view mirror.
Anyway, to the topic at hand. Most of us have desktop machines, servers, or both on our home or small biz network. I’ll just say home network from here on for convenience. The principles are the same in either case.
If you’re like me, sometimes you’re at work, or at a client site, or sitting in a hotel room somewhere and you find that you want to work with a file that you didn’t remember to copy to your laptop. Very frustrating, and there’s not a lot you can do unless you’re a complete idiot running an open network without a firewall.
But I wouldn’t be writing this article if there wasn’t a solution. Enter the VPN. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. Think of it as creating your own small private pipeline to your home network inside of the big pipelines of the internet. Software running on your laptop detects traffic that’s headed for your home network, encrypts it, and sends it to corresponding software on a server or router on your home network. The router decrypts the traffic and sends it along to your home network inside your firewall.
In the past, VPN solutions were complex and expensive. Over time, better hardware and open source software have brought the cost of setting up and running a VPN down to very reasonable levels. If you have an old PC laying around, it can be done for the cost of an extra network card.
Over the years, I’ve played with any number of VPN solutions. Off the top of my head, I can recall (in roughly chronological order)
- IPSEC running on LRP and LEAF Linux-on-a-floppy distributions
- Intel Net Structure (proprietary, based on Shiva Smart Tunneling)
- OpenVPN on IPCop
- OpenVPN on DD-WRT
- Cisco AnyConnect
- OpenVPN on Smoothwall
If you followed any of those links, you probably discovered that there’s a whole bunch of technical complexity involved with setting up and running a VPN. And if you didn’t, don’t worry. I’ve already suffered through that complexity, and I’m sharing what works for me.
What I am running on my home network today is the OpenVPN on Smoothwall solution. It works flawlessly, is completely based on free open source software, and has very modest hardware requirements. I’m running on a Celeron 600 with 1GB RAM and a 4GB Compact Flash card. Most of the time, utilization is in the single digits.
In Part 2, I’ll go into the specifics of how to build a Smoothwall router and how to hook it up to your home network. Part 3 will cover installing and configuring OpenVPN, and how to connect.
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