[geeks] VPN Help needed...

[Phil Stracchino]

Mark Benson wrote:
> On 03/01/2008, Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm at mendelson.com> wrote:
>> Well, I would do something a lot simpler assuming you can use Firefox.
> 
> I can't assume Firefox can be used, sadly. Some people use IE (I know,
> I know), and are stuck to it, and I use Safari, ideally, and while I
> could use the Mac version of Firefox 2.x, it sadly sucks really badly
> in OS X at the moment.
> 
> What part of the setup makes this Firefox specific?

Basically none of it.  To the best of my knowledge, just about every
current Web browser out there (except maybe IE, which I don't use and
have never bothered to find out) has *some* mechanism for automatic
proxy selection.  You don't need the FoxyProxy plugin, either -- that's
adding a third-party wheel to re-invent functionality that's already
built into Firefox (read from a flat text file which can be located
anywhere you like).

> independent proxy config just make it convenient to use it as a stand
> alone client rather than modifying the Windows proxy settings (which
> screw up everything in Windows that uses the Internet)? If this is the
> case then people already using Firefox won't like it (potentially me,
> although it won't bother me, and at least 2 other people) as that
> would involve turning proxy support on and off all the time would it
> not?

Nope.  It should Just Work.

> It's a good idea, and I'd never have thought of it myself. It's free
> and I trust SSH, and it is, as you say, a pretty simple method to
> setup. The issue it falls down on in my mind is that of the client
> side and handling use of corporate and non-corporate access at the
> same time and/or switching between the two. This will be run from
> users 'home' machines, so interupting their regular web service is bad
> clinko (don't ask what that is - I made it up =oP). Maybe I am not
> understanding it right?

Actually, this *is* a problem with many third-party VPN solutions,
including some used by some major corporations -- you can access the
corporate network of the public Internet, but not both at once.  Using
browser proxy configuration combined with an SSH tunnel, it'll be
totally transparent and Just Work.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2         ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
  alaric at caerllewys.net            alaric at metrocast.net
          It's not the years, it's the mileage.