Can anyone recommend a simple, free VPN program?

Hey guys,

I need to get a remote computer to access a LAN and print to a network printer. I might be able to use RDP to do what I need to do, but I don't have enough information yet, so I'm planning on using VPN. Can anyone recommend me a simple to set up and use VPN program for this? I'm not averse to doing tons of configuring myself (which I might have to do, depending on how this LAN looks when I get there), but the connection is for someone decidedly not computer-saavy, so if there is a program where he can click the "work network" button instead of entering an IP, I would prefer to use that.

Any recommendations for programs to use or horror stories for programs to avoid? Thanks.

 

Teamviewer is the best for remote accessing a computer. As for remote printing, unless someone is on the other end to make sure that the printer is on, not out of ink, out of paper, does not jam, that would be hard to do, using remote connection between computers.

 

I don't know how much effort or expense you want to go to but an Untangle router at the site you want to VPN in to is fairly easy to setup. The Untangle lite software is Open Source so free to use, you just need a computer with two network controllers in it. Once it's setup, it has Open VPN in it. You define, by name only, who you want to give VPN access to and it will create, in a couple of clicks, an executable file that you run on the remote computer. That installs an icon near the clock. Just double click it and it will connect to the VPN server.

You can also setup an Untangle box at both ends and create a full time VPN by setting one up as a server and the other as the client.

The nice thing about the Untangle/Open VPN configuration is that only the requests that need to go to the other network access the VPN. All of you local internet activity remains local instead of young through the VPN, slowing things down.

 

I forgot to mention that a static IP on the VPN server end would be strongly advised.

 

Thanks for the ideas, guys.

Brownizs- Never heard of Teamviewer, it sounds kind of like Hamachi, I'll check it out. It's an office printer, so it has ~100% uptime and is generally fed and watered daily. I'm not concerned about not being able to print for those reasons.

Shnerdly- Haven't heard of Untangle, but I will definitely be checking it out, sounds like just what I'm looking for. I was sort of ready to do a standard PPTP connection with setting up an RRAS, but I have no network diagram; I'll basically be walking in blind and seeing what I have to work with and what I need to do, which is why I was hoping for an "install a server-side application here and a client here and it's good" application, because I'm not sure about anything except that they're all Windows computers.


I should be getting over there either this weekend (Christmas weekend ) or next weekend (New Years' weekend ). If anyone is interested, I'll report back with my experiences.