posted
Having worked in the industry for 20 years, I thought I would have known how to do this, but I'm really not sure and all my techie friends aren't available at the moment to answer my question, so I thought I might ask you talented bunch if you knew how this worked (as I need to set it up where I work)
Anyway, at my last company we had access via VPN SSL to the company LAN - nothing spectacular in that I grant you, as lots of places have it and it works very well. We accessed via a https url an address on the public domain where if you had the right certificate in your browser, you would put in a username, then the password was made up of a pin number and a six figure number obtained from an RSA token - all very straightforward.
Now the clever thing that happened was, once you got on to the LAN, you signed on with your standard domain user and password, and wallop! You were facing a complete virtual desktop of your own PC, even down to the wallpaper, even though your PC at work was powered off - how's that work then?
I'm guessing it has something to do with virtual desktops, but I can't remember VMware doing anything as part of the secure sign in, nor do I remember the PC's having snapshots taken and stored anywhere (I didn't really do any network admin before now, so its all a bit new to me)
Sab/Ringers/Mikee/Anyone - got an idea how this works?
posted
I think you've answered your own question. The desktops must be virtualised beforehand, surely? Otherwise, how else would it work? backing up the profile before shutdown? You can use VPN to access a citrix environment, but then there's the licensing issue too.
posted
You need to have a roaming profile configured on the network, so you can use any PC in the building and it'll load up your network profile onto that PC - Works the same way over the VPN.
Right now I have my normal destop running and am also logged into my VPN connection on the same machine as some programs run faster on the VPN than on my network profile..
posted
I use LogMeIn to access my home PC from anywhere using https. The machine happens to be on all the time anyway so no need for roaming profiles but I think I could set the BIOS to 'wake up on LAN' and accessing the service would automatically boot the machine up.
The others are right though, if you have a roaming profile you'll be able to access (what looks like) your desktop from outside the network without it being switched on.
Here at work I use the same laptop both inside or outside the network so even though I have a roaming profile very little needs to be downloaded if I log in from outside.
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posted
Soon I get my second traders screen and then I look ike an utter cvnt as I have 3 versions of my own desktop running concurrently PC/VPN connection/laptop...
Now that's multitasking...
They should just buy me a much faster PC and improve our internal network..
-------------------- my own brother a god dam shit sucking vampire!!! you wait till mum finds out buddy!
quote:Originally posted by Darryn.R: You need to have a roaming profile configured on the network, so you can use any PC in the building and it'll load up your network profile onto that PC - Works the same way over the VPN.
Right now I have my normal destop running and am also logged into my VPN connection on the same machine as some programs run faster on the VPN than on my network profile..
Ok we use roaming profiles here, but how then for example, does it know how to run, for example, firefox which is only installed on my PC (ie not for public use) - that's where my theory about virtual PCs and all that gubbins comes from. And when you say it runs the roaming profile, is the actual task run on a dial up server at the data centre or is it some how magicked and run in Java or something on your browser?
I do also remember that at my last place you could directly connect to certain servers and PC's, like the End of Day PC which would remain always on, but again that might have been through another tool, such as Dameware
posted
Incidentally, I just tried logging on to a colleagues PC with my roaming profile (my admin profile isn't) and it seems just a few of the programs are there, and a load of local programs appear in the start menu.
In other words, like everything else where I work, it's set up is all shite.
posted
That's because you are installing stuff locally, you gave to install it into the directory of your roaming profile...
So when you expand your folders tree in windows explorer say, you should have a network location (in our case a G drive) and then a users folder (mine: DARRYN) and in there are my network programs I can access from any PC.
Use Firefox portable to bypass any problems you might have with install rights..
Oh, and copy the links from your start menu on the desk top to your VPN desktop and they'll work.
posted
Yeah that was my thinking - all cocked here - but I guess with applications and running on a CAT3 network (no really!) having all those applications download to the local documents folder everytime you shift PCs, well it might take a while.
I still reckon one of the best upgrades we could do here starts with a hand grenade....
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