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How do I Access/manage Network from anywhere?

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by mysticallmist

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Hi I need to know how to manage and access a network from virtually anywhere. Our network consists of a mixture of Androids, an IMac, 5 laptops with different OS's installed on each, and printers. I am able to get them all to communicate with each other while in the office but having difficulties outside of the office. I need to find out how I can access each device from anywhere in the world to do updates, changes, etc. How do I do that?

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by whofsckingcares

When I were a lad I ran FreeS/WAN on my network to allow remote access, it had clients for just about everything. It's migrated to "strongSWAN" - http://www.strongswan.org/ - if you are comfortable with open source solutions. We eventually migrated to an appliance-based VPN solution, which still allows both RDP access, so I can run my work desktop from home, and network-based so that I can join the network. There are lots of appliances that let you do this, do some research. Lastly, if you have a router or a firewall chances are that VPN connectivity is baked into that (normally it's a license upgrade). Any of those will get you onto the work network, and once you're there you can manage the devices as you normally would.

by robo_dev

However, you need different solutions for different scenarios.

To access your LAN is simple, a VPN-based solution. Personally i use OpenVPN ALS running on either XP or Ubuntu. OpenVPN is clientless web-browser based VPN with applets for SSH, VNC, RDP, and even web redirects for managing devices such as routers with Web interfaces.

For remote-control on the road fixing of Apple computers, there's apple remote desktop, and Windows has their own remote desktop solution. Not sure if it's possible to remote control an android device, but there probably is an app for that.

The tricky part of the above solutions is that when traveling, the user may be on a LAN where they cannot control the firewall, so therefore a service-based app like LogMeIn or GoToMyPC or an app like iRule or LogMeIn Rescue may work best.

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