nedd a breakdown of vpn, or a good newbie resource
 

i want to set up a vpn with my school. i have the cisco vpn client on my computer and it seems to be installed with no prolems.
i dont know what eactly needs to be in the profile.
and ive been told that they have vpn set up on the schools network but i dont know anything else. i can ssh to the school computer, from this can i find out anything that i need to know to set up my profile? somebody told me that i have to have ssh conected in order to use vpn?
ive given the cisco online manual a try but i think it presumes i know more than i do about vpn.