OpenVPN
 

Hi,

I am playing around with OpenVPN, but quickly noticed, that i am not really sure how it is supposed to work.

As far as i have noticed, it seems to emulate a NIC, which i am not sure what it is supposed to be good for.

From what i understand, a VPN connection connects two networks with each other, making them one; users from all computers (given they are in the same subnet, ...) can access all the data on everything.

Am i wrong?

How is it different from an ssh connection with port forwarding, and what is the deal with the emulated NIC?

What i am trying to use it for is to allow me to use my home network from on the road, such as printers, network shares, and other cool stuff :D

Thanks!!

Please read some configuration examples.

ssh port forwarding, works for a particular port. So for all clients sending packet in a port, it will have same behaviour for a particular port.
But openvpn, creates a true tunnel between a client and the server (tun0, etc...). So for each client,
there will be one tunnel interface. And so can handle any no. of ports (basically any kind of traffic).

I got it to work using the default configuration. I installed openvpn on the client and opened the connection using the "sample" configuration.

- How do I tell the traffic to take the tunnel instead of the LAN card?

Let's say i only use the NIC in the computer to connect to the vpn network, and i do not want to use it for the internet traffic. Is there any way to tell the traffic (port specific (?) ) to take a certain network adapter or tunnel? How would I get all other traffic except the VPN to go over the tunnel?

A router I imagine.

I am not completely sure what you mean by that, Bobymc. Surely i have a "router", or NAT server and switch combined, used to share the internet within a smaller network at home, where the server is supposed to be running.

I am asking how i define what traffic goes to which network interface card. I only want the VPN-connection traffic to go trough the real hardware nic, and the rest of all traffic trough the virtual nic.

OK' I'm not too deep in LINUX and I dont really get your point.

I'm just telling that I used to have WIN2k run trough LINUX as server dialing the ISP.
This is just a very simple VPN, with only one traffic.

Let say;
I'm the HOST another person is the guests.
You mean every guest must meet me before they can have their party, is that what you want?
OR the guest can have their party through the backdoor without meeting me first?

Would IP-FORWARDING is the right answer, presumably.

I cannot answer if your scope is Wide Area Network/WAN.

Regards.

Have a peek at this;

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Vnc

would be usefull for supplement.