On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 19:06, Bill Polhemus wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:
> > Is the pptp connection giving you access to the rest of the
> > network behind the connection, and is the server you
> > want to access on the same subnet or do you need additional
> > routing?  Start by trying to ping the remote ip address.
> >   
> I can ping the remote address (which I ASSUME is a gateway), but I have 
> no idea how to "get access to the rest of the network."

By remote address, I meant the server with the share you
want to access, not just the other end of the pptp connection
unless they happen to be the same machine.

>  Perhaps I can go 
> to the Windows machine, and see if I can figure out the IP number of one 
> of the machines on the other side. I notice that I am assigned an IP 
> number in the 10.xxx.xxx.xxx private address space, according to the 
> PPTP client's output, so I must be "in."

You should get an IP number and a netmask with the VPN
interface.  Anything within the subnet range specified by
the netmask should automatically be routed though the
connection.  However, if there are additional routers
between the VPN endpoint and the machine you want to
reach you will have to add a route to send it through
the vpn interface.

> As I said, the way this HAS been working from a Windows client is, I 
> connect via VPN, then bring up the Remote Desktop Client, and type in 
> the machine name (I guess that's a NETBIOS name) for the host I want to 
> run Remote Desktop on, and it comes up, I log into that desktop and work 
> remotely. When I'm finished, I log off the desktop, then disconnect the VPN.

Windows pptp forces the default route to go through the
vpn.  That may or may not be what you want.  If you browse
an internet site it would tunnel through the vpn and back
out to the internet at the remote vpn endpoint.  

> I assume that's the way it ought to work through the Linux client as 
> well--although the HELP file on KRDC (the KDE Remote Desktop Client) 
> doesn't really talk about Windows.

Netbios names are peculiar to windows - if you are going to connect
anything else it is best to put the server names in DNS.  Active
directory servers will do this automatically but you'd have to
change your resolv.conf to query them if they aren't registered
in public DNS.  

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell@gmail.com