DD-WRT and OpenVPN

[Coherence]

Here's my situation:

My employer has an unsecured wi-fi network which is used by guests who visit the company for training. It is generally used by employees, as well, who bring their laptops to work.

I've been warned that there is a good probability that at least one person in the building sniffs the wireless network packets. I am not using my laptop at work for anything particuarly "unprofessional" (other than WoW while eating lunch), but it was suggested to me that I tunnel somewhere when connected to the network anyway.

I recently read a How-To in MaximumPC about using Hamachi and UltraVNC to access your PC at home, but I can do that with RDP anyway (since I run XP Pro on both machines). What I really want to do is tunnel to my home network, then go back out to the Internet from there.

I heard that I can do this by flashing my v2 WRT54G Linksys router with DD-WRT, as it has a version with OpenVPN built in which can be run in either client or server modes.

I was told that this is not particularly reliable or trustworthy, however, and it was suggested that I set up a dedicated PC to act as an OpenVPN server/router on my home network.

Has anyone here had any experience doing what I describe? How well does the DD-WRT OpenVPN server mode work? Is it reliable and secure (the wiki says it uses SSL Certificates)? DD-WRT and OpenVPN are free, so I'd rather do that unless a dedicated server is particularly more secure, reliable, and will perform better (throughput-wise, that is).

 

[zig3695]

tomato is better then dd-wrt i think... i know.. but im not sure if it does openvpn (i bet it does) http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Tomato_Firmware

thier homepage is down right now...

 

[JackMDS]

Why tomato is better ?

Can you explain it in technical terms?

 

[JackMDS]

Coherence I am not sure what is that you want; you described different method to use Remote Control, use the one that you prefer.

As far as Work system is concerned you would Not get Help here.

Most of the "Frequent Flyers" here are the people who are trying to block people from doing thing like these from work.

 

[Coherence]

JackMDS, I think you misunderstood my post. I am not interested in any kind of Remote Control of a PC at home. I simply want to secure my wireless connection at work by tunneling to my network at home.

 

[Coherence]

Anyone? Nobody here has experience with the OpenVPN built into DD-WRT?

 

[jlazzaro]

Originally posted by: Coherence
JackMDS, I think you misunderstood my post. I am not interested in any kind of Remote Control of a PC at home. I simply want to secure my wireless connection at work by tunneling to my network at home.

functionally, there is no difference...you're still creating a tunnel between the company's and your home network.

are there any IT people where you work? perhaps you should address the root problem of securing wireless access with at least WEP/WPA rather than further compromising your company's network. guest access is no justification for wide-open wifi...

 

[Coherence]

Originally posted by: jlazzaro

Originally posted by: Coherence
JackMDS, I think you misunderstood my post. I am not interested in any kind of Remote Control of a PC at home. I simply want to secure my wireless connection at work by tunneling to my network at home.

functionally, there is no difference...you're still creating a tunnel between the company's and your home network.

are there any IT people where you work? perhaps you should address the root problem of securing wireless access with at least WEP/WPA rather than further compromising your company's network. guest access is no justification for wide-open wifi...

Functionally, the difference is between leaving a PC at home running all the time with background OpenVPN server software running, or just my router (which is always running anyway).