How to set up a VPN on Karmic to XP

[Rafiq Hajat]

Patton,
you have put your finger squarely on my situation. So how do I go about
sharing files and printers on this existing network?
Thanks for taking the trouble to guide us.

Rafiq Hajat
Executive Director,
The Institute for Policy Interaction
P. O. Box E14, Post Dot Net ,
Blantyre - Malawi.
Cell: +265 999 968800
www.ipimalawi.org 

On Thu, 2010-02-04 at 00:36 -0800, Patton Echols wrote:
> On 02/03/2010 03:33 AM, Rafiq Hajat wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> > my offices have a wireless network set up for internet access through a
> > router. I wonder whether it would be possible to use this as a conduit
> > for a network linking various PC's (some running XP and other running
> > Ubuntu)to each other for file sharing and printing.
> > I have never set up a VPN or anything like it before, so simplicity and
> > your patience would be dearly appreciated.
> >   
> 
> 
> If all of the computers are network connected through the same router, 
> then you may not need a VPN at all. 
> 
> The typical small office has all the computers sharing an internet 
> connection through a router.  They all get their IP addresses from the 
> router, usually in the 192,168.xxx.xxx range.  (The default setting of 
> many of the appliance routers on the market) Is that yours? 
> 
> If that is the case, you do not need a VPN  -- a Virtual Private 
> Network, because the computers sharing the are IN a private network and 
> you do not need a Virtual one.
> 
> VPN is used where you want to network the same way as I described above, 
> but one or more of the computers in the network access the network over 
> insecure public connections -- the internet.
> 
> What it sounds like you are asking is this:  You have a shared 
> connection to the internet through your router.  You want to use that 
> connection to also share files and printers.  You will want to use Samba 
> on the linux boxes and the built in windows networking on the XP boxes.
> 
> Can you describe the problem in more detail?  Maybe you can get better 
> answers.