Hello,

I want secure access to a few different services on my home network (specifically, a samba share on a Linux host and RDP on a windows host). My home network is simple: everything sits on a flat network behind a Linksys NAT gateway and I subscribe to a dynamic DNS service so I can always find my IP.

My first thought was to access these services via VPN. My Linux host is almost running 24x7 so I figured I could install a VPN server on it and setup port forwarding on the NAT router. I looked at OpenVPN but I was turned off by the fact that it required its own client software. When I'm away from home I'll probably be on a Windows client and I won't always have the ability to install client software.

Any recommendations for a secure VPN server that works with Windows' VPN client? Or any other solution for that matter?

Thanks,

Then you should use what Windows uses: PPTP. Not much choice I would say.

jlinkels

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A PPTP server realisation for Linux is poptop. Maybe it's the only software compatible in this situation.

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you can use ssh port forwarding .
for example for making a rdp to your windows from your linux server by using a system out of home :

install squid proxy server on your Linux server then from a system out of your home network forward rdp port to your proxy server by using ssh (putty) & then start the rdp session and the proxy server will connect your rdp to your windows.
i did this for port 80 and 443 for securing the web browsing . not sure if you can do this for any services like rdp .

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@ali.abry
I looked into SSH forwarding in the past and while it worked great for RDP I couldn't get it to work with samba. I seem to recall the issue was with the Windows 7 client - eventually I was able to get SSH forwarding and samba working with a third party utility (localsmb.exe) but going back to one of my original requirements: I don't want to have to install additional software on the client to get access to my home services.

I'll look into Lexus45 and jlinkels' suggestion to use PPTP.

Thanks all!

You can install OpenVPN client GUI http://openvpn.se/download.html for windows on your windows/machine permanently and you can access your network from anywhere. Everything works fine with openvpn server

@KinnowGrower

Yes, I realize openVPN has a Windows client. The problem is that I may want access to my home network from a client that isn't my own and doesn't have the openVPN client installed. Things are working just fine with pptp, but it would have been nice if there was a more secure alternative.

what about portable openvpn client ? you can upload it some where and when ever you need it just download it and no need to installing it.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ovpnp/