VPN (Virtual Private Network). Anyone Using It?

[Monty Gibson]

Has anyone tried to use this to dial into a LAN?

[that_kid]

I use it all the time :) for the most part it works great. The only problem i've run into with the built in vpn is if you type a dotted ip address the vpn will think that you want to be connected to the net and drop your vpn connection. I'm still trying to find a good IPSec vpn client, but for the meantime the builtin vpn works well.

[Monty Gibson]

I use it all the time :) for the most part it works great. The only problem i've run into with the built in vpn is if you type a dotted ip address the vpn will think that you want to be connected to the net and drop your vpn connection. I'm still trying to find a good IPSec vpn client, but for the meantime the builtin vpn works well.


Really :!: That's excellent :!: Here in the hospital we have a LAN and I want to be able to dial into it so that I can view my patients MRI's, CT scans, and X-rays without having to go down to the Radiology Department all of the time. I know I speak of this company often; www.digisoftdirect.com, but they have a program called reViewMD PDA (http://www.digisoftdirect.com/Products/reViewMDpda.html)that allows you to view DICOM files (files that contain such images as mentioned above). So, I will have to get my LAN's IP address and just plug in the numbers and it should work properly?

Thanks for the information and any future responses! I appreciate it.

[that_kid]

That sounds great and I'm glad I was able to help. One thing you want to find out is which type of vpn is in use. The vpn builtin to the pocketpc only supports PPTP, If your company uses IPSec then you will have to get a 3rd party client from http://www.certicom.com/products/movian/movianvpn.html or http://www.funk.com there are others but those I know off the top of my head. Good luck

[Monty Gibson]

That sounds great and I'm glad I was able to help. One thing you want to find out is which type of vpn is in use. The vpn builtin to the pocketpc only supports PPTP, If your company uses IPSec then you will have to get a 3rd party client from http://www.certicom.com/products/movian/movianvpn.html or http://www.funk.com there are others but those I know off the top of my head. Good luck

Excellent :!:. What does PPTP or IPSec mean? "IP" of course is "Internet Protocol;" is it not? And "Sec" I'm guessing means "secondary?" This is new to me and something I have not done before. So; any advice or setup help would be most appreciated.

[Steven Cedrone]

Excellent :!:. What does PPTP or IPSec mean? "IP" of course is "Internet Protocol;" is it not? And "Sec" I'm guessing means "secondary?" This is new to me and something I have not done before. So; any advice or setup help would be most appreciated.

IPSec = IP Security Protocol
PPTP = Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol

HTH,

Steve

[Monty Gibson]

Excellent :!:. What does PPTP or IPSec mean? "IP" of course is "Internet Protocol;" is it not? And "Sec" I'm guessing means "secondary?" This is new to me and something I have not done before. So; any advice or setup help would be most appreciated.

IPSec = IP Security Protocol
PPTP = Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol

HTH,

Steve

Thanks Steven! Now: IPSec: This just ensures security over the IP address? PPTP: What does Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol provide i.e., what does it do and what's it's purpose?

[fyiguy]

Before doing this I would first either check with your Hospital IT Staff or PACS Manager or both. In using different hardware some hardware has different security options available and the same goes for VPN software.

We have looked into the same thing at our hosptial and VPN does seem the way to go especially with the new CLIA standards. Also different PACS systems have different logon methods some are NT based and others are Unix based. Usually to access the PACS system all you need is the IP adress of the PACS server, a viewer(there are several freeware DICOM Viewers out there) abilty to access the server hardware(system/workstation is part of the allowable machines allowed access) as well as user name and password.

We are actually considering stopping all WiFi hospital communications for security reasons, so this project is now on hold for us.

[Steven Cedrone]

I'm quoting from some documentation found on the web:

IPSec:
IPsec is a set of extensions to the IP protocol family. It provides cryptographic security services. These services allow for authentication, integrity, access control, and confidentiality. IPsec provides similar services as SSL, but at the network layer, in a way that is completely transparent to your applications, and much more powerful. We say this because your applications do not have to have any knowledge of IPsec to be able to use it. You can use any IP protocol over IPsec. You can create encrypted tunnels (VPNs), or just do encryption between computers. Since you have so many options, IPsec is rather complex (much more so then SSL!)

PPTP:
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is a protocol (set of communication rules) that allows corporations to extend their own corporate network through private "tunnels" over the public Internet. Effectively, a corporation uses a wide-area network as a single large local area network. A company no longer needs to lease its own lines for wide-area communication but can securely use the public networks. This kind of interconnection is known as a virtual private network (VPN).


It's just two different ways of doing the same thing. One supported heavily by Microsoft (PPTP), one not...

Steve

[Monty Gibson]

Before doing this I would first either check with your Hospital IT Staff or PACS Manager or both. In using different hardware some hardware has different security options available and the same goes for VPN software.

We have looked into the same thing at our hospital and VPN does seem the way to go especially with the new CLIA standards. Also different PACS systems have different logon methods some are NT based and others are Unix based. Usually to access the PACS system all you need is the IP address of the PACS server, a viewer(there are several freeware DICOM Viewers out there) ability to access the server hardware(system/workstation is part of the allowable machines allowed access) as well as user name and password.

We are actually considering stopping all WiFi hospital communications for security reasons, so this project is now on hold for us.


Oh YES! This is what I was looking for exactly! Our Systems Administrators (Gods) were talking about the WiFi. Of course, having a Pocket PC Phone there is slim to no chance of being able to do this without the WiFi card and we can't support that (I think) without the SDIO standard. So; this is excellent news for me. I do appreciate it and am learning so much now it's awesome. Again I ask a question:

PACS: What does this mean, what is it, and what's it's function?

[Monty Gibson]

I'm quoting from some documentation found on the web:

[truncated]

It's just two different ways of doing the same thing. One supported heavily by Microsoft (PPTP), one not...

Steve

:roll: Sorry Steven, I suppose I could have looked this up on the Internet myself and saved you the time and effort. But I do appreciate your time and effort. I understand now and it's of great benefit to me. Thank you again.

[Steven Cedrone]

:roll: Sorry Steven, I suppose I could have looked this up on the Internet myself and saved you the time and effort. But I do appreciate your time and effort. I understand now and it's of great benefit to me. Thank you again.

No problem, glad I could help!!!

Steve

[Janak Parekh]

It's just two different ways of doing the same thing. One supported heavily by Microsoft (PPTP), one not...
For trivia's sake, IPsec is network-layer security, while PPTP/L2TP ride above IP. They do IP-in-IP encapsulation, but secure each packet before they get encapsulated into what are called GRE (General Routing Encapsulation) packets.

Both accomplish nearly the same purpose, although in Win2k/XP the latter two are much, much easier to do. Long-term, though, everyone will be moving to IPsec.

--janak

[that_kid]

Janak Parekh
Both accomplish nearly the same purpose, although in Win2k/XP the latter two are much, much easier to do. Long-term, though, everyone will be moving to IPsec.
--janak

I agree, after I iron out some pocketpc IPSec client issues the pptp side of things will be closed.