PC Hacker

iPhone Projector

2012-01-18T23:12:00.000-08:00

There are quite a few projectors available for the iPhone, but most of them are quite expensive. So Instructables member Iamalegend has created a DIY iPhone Projector using a shoebox, duct tape, a marker, a few of Lego bricks and a magnifying glass.

Iamalegend writes:

This is a fun easy project that anyone can make in about 15-20 minutes. The whole project only cost me a dollar and works good enough that I can enjoy an entire movie on it. The way it works is the light from your phone or iPod goes through the magnifying glass and magnifies onto the wall. The whole project is very easy to make and easy to understand.

All you need to do is place the magnifying glass on one side of box and your iPhone or iPod touch aligned in front of the magnifying glass on the other side of the box. You may need to prop it up using lego parts as mentioned by Iamalegend or something like a play-doh.

It looks like Iamalegend wasn't the first person to create a DIY iPhone projector as we found this YouTube video created back in July by Dylan who calls himself the Household Hacker, which shows how to make your own DIY iPhone projector.

You can visit Instructables for the step-by-step instructions or checkout the video below to create your own DIY iPhone projector:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqPntijMrbU&

Use Your Smartphone to Remotely Send Downloads to Your Desktop PC

2012-01-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

If you want to download a file to your computer that's hosted somewhere on the web, this is the method you want to use. All you need is an account with Dropbox (our favorite file-syncing tool) and a web browser on your smartphone. To download that file to your home computer from the comfort of your phone, just follow these steps (or watch the video to the left):

Grab the URL of the file you want to download on your smartphone.
Open any web browser on your smartphone and head over to urldroplet.com.
Enter the URL in URL Droplet's only text field and click the "Log In" button.
Log into your Dropbox account and grant access to URL Droplet.
When you're back on the main URL Droplet page, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and see if the file is listed as queued. If not, just add it again via URL Droplet's only text field and click the "Save" button.
It'll take a few minutes for the file to show up in your Dropbox, but when it does it'll be in the root folder and you can use it when you get back to any computer that's syncing your Dropbox folder.

Pretty easy! If you want to see a walkthrough, watch the video above.

Alternatively, if you want to do this with a native iPhone app, download Drop It ($1). For another option, your could set If This Then That to add, for example, emailed file URLs to your Dropbox (learn how to use it with our guide).

Remotely Download Torrents

There are a few ways to remotely download torrents, and we have a bunch of guides to help you do it. If you want to stick with the same basic method outlined above, you can send .torrent files remotely to your Dropbox folder. For a little more control, though, you might prefer just using uTorrent's mobile interface to remotely schedule torrents instead:

Grab a copy of uTorrent (if you don't have one already).
Open up uTorrent and edit its Preferences/Settings.
Go to the "Remote" tab and check the box next to "Enable uTorrent Remote".
Enter a unique computer name and a password. If your computer name is accepted and isn't in use by anyone else, you'll be asked to answer a new security question. Fill in your answer and press okay.
Go to remote.utorrent.com in your smartphone's web browser and log in with your computer's name and password.
Press the + button to add a new torrent via URL.

That's all there is to it! For a more detailed walkthrough, see our recent guide to monitoring your BitTorrent downloads from any computer or mobile device.

Remotely Download Files from Usenet

Using your smartphone to tell your home computer to remotely download files from Usenet is really easy to do. You just need the right app, SABnzbd+ running on that home computer, and the port SABnzbd+ runs on (8080 by default) forwarded to that computer via your router's admin software. Then you can use the relevant app for your smartphone to remotely schedule downloads. That's the process in a nutshell. Here's the step by step:

Presumably you've already got a Usenet account and set up SABnzbd+, but if not you need to do that.
Forward port 8080 (or whatever port you're using) to the IP address of the computer running SABnzbd+. If you don't know how to do this, read our port forwarding guide.
Now you need an app for your smartphone. If you're using an iPhone, download myNZB ($3). For Android, download, NZBAir ($5), sabdroidplus (Free), NZBDroid (Free, $1), or one of the many other options.
Once you've downloaded your NZB-adding app of choice, go into SABnzbd+ on your computer, grab your API key. You can find it by choosing Config -> General, then scrolling down the page to find the "API Key", and copy it. You can either do this directly on your phone or do it on your computer and send the API key to your phone via email (or whatever method you prefer).
Go into the settings on the app you chose and enter your SABnzbd+ credentials. This will generally include your username, password, and API key. On the iPhone, you'll find this in the myNZB settings in the Settings app—not in the myNZB app. On Android, the location will vary a little because we're not talking about a multiple apps, but you'll find the settings you're looking for by pressing the menu button on your device.

Now you're all set up! You can now use your SAB-compatible app to search for and schedule Usenet downloads with ease.

Windows 7 VPN Connection Setup

2012-01-18T07:48:00.000-08:00

On Windows XP days we simply create the vpn my previous note you read windows server 2003 vpn server setup. Now I write here windows 7 vpn connection setup create. You will create the vpn setup easily step by step with this notes

Let's begin with a computer that has Windows 7 installed and is not yet domain-joined. Begin by logging on using the credentials of a local administrator on the computer:

Figure 1: Step 1 of configuring Windows 7 for VPN Single Sign On

Once you are interactively logged on to the Windows desktop, open the Network and Sharing Center. The next step is to create your VPN connection, and you begin doing this by clicking the Set Up A New Connection Or Network link circled in red below:

Figure 2: Step 2 of configuring Windows 7 for VPN Single Sign On

In the Set Up A Connection Or Network wizard, click the Connect To A Workplace option as shown below. If the user of the computer is going to be using a dial-up modem connection instead of a VPN tunnel over the public Internet, select the fourth option in this wizard page instead and proceed similarly to the steps that follow.

Figure 3: Step 3 of configuring Windows 7 for VPN Single Sign On

In the Connect To A Workplace wizard, click the Use My Internet Connection (VPN) option as shown next:

Figure 4: Step 4 of configuring Windows 7 for VPN Single Sign On

On the next wizard page, specify a FQDN or IP address for the VPN server the user will use to connect to the corporate network, and type a friendly name for this connection as shown below. Also be sure to select the Allow Other People To Use This Connection checkbox as shown below. Selecting that checkbox is important since it makes the System built-in identity the owner of the VPN connection and not the user (Karen) who is configuring the connection on the computer, and that will allow other users of the computer to perform VPN SSO logon. And if the user of the computer will be using his smart card for logging in, be sure to select the Use A Smart Card checkbox as well. Finally, if the computer you are configuring is not currently connected to the Internet, you can select the Don't Connect Now option which will set up the new VPN connection but not initiate it until you manually choose to do so later.

Figure 5: Step 5 of configuring Windows 7 for VPN Single Sign On

On the next wizard page, type the credentials that will be used for logging on to the domain. In this case, Karen Berg is configuring the computer for her own personal use, so she enters her own credentials here.

Figure 6: Step 6 of configuring Windows 7 for VPN Single Sign On

Finish the wizard to set up the new VPN connection. Once this is done, the user can click the Network icon in the notification area of the taskbar, and a popup window will appear showing the newly created VPN connection:

Figure 7: Verifying the VPN connection.

To complete setting up her computer, Karen now joins her computer to the domain. If she is in the office, she can do this by connecting the computer to a LAN drop, clicking Start, and right-clicking Computer to open the System Control Panel item. Then she clicks Change Settings and join her computer to the domain the usual way. If she is on the road sitting in a hotel somewhere, she would first use a LAN drop in a hotel room or a secure wireless hotspot to gain Internet access and then click the Network icon in the notification area, click My VPN Connection in the popup window, click the Connect button, provide her domain credentials when prompted to do so, establish a VPN connection to the corporate network, finish logging on to her desktop, and then join her computer to the domain in the usual way.

Logging On using VPN SSO

Now Karen is on the road and she needs to access shared resources on her company's internal network over a VPN connection. To do this, she turns on her computer and waits until the logon screen appears:

Figure 8: Step 1 of logging on using VPN SSO

Karen then presses Ctrl+Alt+Del and sees the usual logon screen as shown next:

Figure 9: Step 2 of logging on using VPN SSO

Instead of typing her password, Karen clicks the Switch User button, and an additional blue button now appears near the bottom right of her screen. This button is circled in red in the next figure, and if Karen hovers her mouse over this button a tooltip saying "Network Logon" appears:

Figure 10: Step 3 of logging on using VPN SSO

Karen clicks the blue Network Logon button, and this opens a new logon screen called My VPN Connection (this was the friendly name that Karen gave to the VPN connection she created earlier). Karen now types her username and password (if she uses a smartcard then she selects the checkbox instead):

Figure 11: Step 4 of logging on using VPN SSO

After entering her credentials, Karen presses Enter and a dialog box appears indicating that the VPN connection is being established with the remote network:

Figure 12: The VPN connection is being established

Once the VPN connection has been established, the credentials Karen specified will automatically be used to log her on to the desktop of her computer. Once her desktop has appeared, she can browse shared resources on the corporate network over the VPN connection, upload and download files, and perform her work.

Describe of WI-FI

2010-07-28T04:27:00.001-07:00

In this huge IT world so many company made routers like (Cisco, Beetel,motorola, pronet, D-link)
Wifi is biggest revolution and good for Internet service provider and Enterprise companies, Small Companies.

Wifi is one of the good source for us, we are use this service anywhere, where the wifi signal catch our mobility gadgets without any kind of wires.

Motherboard Problem Post Boot Problem

2010-07-28T04:16:00.000-07:00

Hello my blog reader, I am away for last few days so i am not update more, now a days i facing motherboard problem. So write my experience how i solve that problem.

Sometime you are start the pc and motherboard screen splash does not appear on monitor you realize power supply and pc is start properly otherwise you can't see anything on your monitor screen.

In that case your motherboard has in trouble, so find out now which problem in motherboard.

1. Backup battery is loose that time your pc has not start.
2. And the Major problem is Motherboard IC It's Very micro chip type fits on motherboard near cpu fan of course.
3. Clean the dust on process via blower
4. Clean and proper fits RAM on memory slot.
5. Check power supply
6. Check data cable work connect properly and working too.

If you try above 6 method and your pc is sucessfully boot. OR If not start then your motherboard is dead, Change the Motherboard.

DNS

2010-04-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

Domain Name System ( Or service or Server), and Internet service that translates domain names into IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, they're easier to remeber. The Internet however. is really based on IP addreses. Every time you use a domain name, therefore, a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the domain name www.microsoft.com might translate to 207.46.19.254

The DNS system is, in fact, its own network, If one DNS server doesn't know how to translate a particular domain name, it asks another one, and so on, until the correct IP address is returned.

DHCP

2010-04-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

Short for DHCP "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol" , A protocol for assigning dynamic IP address to devices on a network. DHCP Serves a basic foundation of a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 network infrastructure. DHCP provides hosts with an Internet Protocol configuration needed to communicate with other computeres on the network.This configuration includes at a minimum an IP address and subnet mask, but it typically also includes a primary domain suffix a default gateway, preferred and altemate DNS servers, Wins servers and several other options. Without being able to provide clients with a reliable and automatic means of adopting such a configuration, you would quickly be overburdened as an adminsitrator with the task of managing these configurations manually

DHCP is an IP standard designed to reduce the complexity of administerign these address configuration. By issuing leases from a central database, DHCP automatically manages address assignment and configures other essential settings for your network clients

About the disk quotas

2010-02-09T12:44:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, in Windows NT Disk Quotas didn’t exist, which was much to the disappointment of Windows Administrators. Along came Windows 2000 and with the introduction of Disk Quotas it meant Administrators had the ability to track and control user disk usage. The only problem was that they didn’t really have a sufficient way of managing disk quotas. Scripting, reporting and remote usage methods were somewhat limited and ambiguous. Windows 2003 offers better all round functionality and easier enterprise-wide disk quota manageability.

Disk quotas are used in conjunction with NTFS, Group Policy and Active Directory technology. NTFS is the file system on which disk quotas can be set, Group Policy is what is used to set disk quotas on a specific set of users and computers, and Active Directory is used to gather a list of users to which the disk quota group policy will be set. It is important to note that disk quotas can only be used with NTFS; setting them up on FAT or FAT32 drives is not possible.

Disk quotas are configured on a per volume basis and cannot be set on a file or folder level. Each volume would have its individual settings which do not affect any other volumes. You may have a single disk partitioned into two volumes (drives C and D for example) with each having their own quota settings. Disk quotas can also be configured on a per user basis and different groups of users can have different limits set. Administrators are the only ones to whom a disk quota does not apply; by default there are no limits for an Administrator.

There are numerous reasons you may wish to make use of disk quotas. Based on the requirements of your organization you might choose to configure disk quotas if you have a restricted amount of disk space on a specific server, a limited number of servers, or perhaps the need to monitor user disk space usage without actually enforcing a quota. You might be wondering why you’d want to just monitor user disk space usage. Well, let’s say you have a fileserver set up with multiple users in your organization using it everyday to store temporary files. As time goes by and perhaps people forget to delete the files from the server, the amount of available disk space will continue to decrease. If nothing is done about it then users will be denied the right to add more files on the server (until some old files are removed). By monitoring user disk space usage with Microsoft’s disk quotas, you can be notified of when space is running out and then increase the allocated space on the server accordingly or notify your users that they need to delete their files from the server. Additionally, setting a quota warning level will allow for a system event log to be written for your review.

Setting a Group Policy

The most practical means of configuring disk quotas on a large scale would be through a domain-level group policy. This will configure the settings automatically on any of the volumes you wish to have disk quotas enabled, saving you the need to have to configure each volume independently.

Open the Group Policy Object Editor (gpedit.msc) and navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Disk Quotas. On the right hand pane you will see a list of policies that can be applied. Double click the “Default Quota Limit and Warning Level Properties” setting.

Figure 1: The Default Quota Limit and Warning Level Properties Dialog

The default quota limit is the maximum amount of space assigned per default quota, whereas the warning level is the amount of space at which a warning is triggered. Normally 90-95% of the total value is a good limit to set as a warning.

Now configure any other settings you wish to be applied by selecting them from the right hand pane. To have your changes applied immediately you can enable the “Disk Quota Policy Processing” policy and choose “Process Even If The Group Policy Objects Have Not Changed” from Administrative Templates > System > Group Policy.

Figure 2: The Disk Quota Policy Processing Dialog

You may also want to manually force a group policy update using the gpupdate utility. Simply go to Start > Run and type gpupdate followed by the return key. This will refresh both the computer and user policies.

Whatever changes you make in the group policy will be reflected on the Quota properties tab of each volume you wish to configure in your domain. The options will appear grayed out and non-editable.

Configuring Disk Quotas and Disk Quota Entries

Using the Computer Management console, you can configure disk quotas for a local or remote volume from a central location. To open Computer Management, you have three choices; either right click My Computer and select Manage, type compmgmt.msc in the Run bar or select Computer Management from the Administrative Tools folder.

Select which computer you wish to manage from the root node. To select a remote machine right click the “Computer Management” node, select “Connect to another computer…” and choose the computer you wish to manage. Now, navigate to Storage > Disk Management and select the volume you want to configure from the right hand pane and open the properties dialog. Click the Quota tab and enable the options you want to be enforced.

Figure 3: The Disk Quota Properties Dialog

The traffic lights icon at the top indicate the status of the disk quota; red means quotas are disabled, orange signifies a changeover is taking place (while it rebuilds the disk information), and green means disk quotas are enabled. A textual representation of the status is shown on the right of the image.

Check “Deny disk space to users exceeding quota limit” to have Windows restrict users from adding more data to their allocated disk space when the quota limit has been reached. Users will be unable to add more data until some space is freed up.

As you can see from Figure 3 above, the quota limit for new users is greyed out. This is because we have already set it from the group policy, which overrides any customizable settings on the quota tab of a volume. In this case we have limited the user’s disk space to 500MB and set a warning level to 450MB.

You may choose not to limit disk usage and just enable quotas to track disk space usage on a per volume basis by leaving the “Deny disk space to users exceeding quota limit” checkbox unchecked and logging a warning when a user exceeds the warning level defined as part of the quota limit. Whenever a user exceeds this limit a Warning event log will be written to the Application Event Log and shown in the Event Viewer.

Figure 4: A warning event log for disk quotas

As per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915182 there is a known issue in the pre service pack version of Windows 2003 in that the Warning event log is incorrectly shown as an Information log in Event Viewer. In the Quota Entries application however, it is correctly displayed as a Warning.

When you press the Apply button on the Disk Quota Properties Dialog you are notified that the volume will be rescanned to update the statistics and that this operation may take several minutes. Simply press OK to continue and have disk quotas enabled on that volume.

Quota Entries

Click the Quota Entries button on the Disk Quota Properties Dialog to view a list of individual disk quota entries. From this section you can create, delete and manage quota entries for specific users or groups. If a user requires more space than others then you can set this from here.

Go to Quota > New Quota Entry and the Active Directory User Picker will appear. Choose a user from Active Directory and press OK. You will be given the option to limit disk space and set a warning level or not limit disk usage at all.

Figure 5: Adding a new quota entry

Once you have chosen your preferred settings, press OK and the user will be added to the list. You can monitor a user’s disk usage by looking at the properties of each of the columns. ‘Status’ indicates whether the user is within their limit, if a warning has been logged or if the limit has been exceeded; the icon will change accordingly.

Figure 6: Viewing a list of Quota Entries

Conclusion

This article has given you an overview of Disk Quotas in Windows 2003. We’ve looked at why they would be used and how to configure them.

Some Administrators will find they won’t need to utilize Disk Quotas, but for those who do I have no doubt that you will find them very useful indeed.

Windows XP Network Protocols

2010-02-09T11:49:00.001-08:00

In Windows XP networking, TCP/IP is the preferred protocol. It's automatically installed, can't be un-installed, and is used by default for all networking functions. This reflects the state of networking in the 21st century. With the widespread use of the Internet, which uses TCP/IP, other network protocols are fading away everywhere.

Windows XP provides one other supported protocol -- IPX/SPX -- and one unsupported protocol, NetBEUI. Unusual protocols that have been included in earlier versions of Windows (Banyan Vines, DLC, etc) are no longer available.

If you're setting up a new network that includes XP, TCP/IP is almost certainly the only protocol to use. If you have an existing network that uses IPX/SPX or NetBEUI, we'll show you how you can continue to use that protocol in XP.

To see the network components, including protocols, which are associated with a network connection, open the Network Connections folder, right click, the connection, and select Properties.

Here are the components that XP installs by default:

To see the settings for a particular protocol, click the protocol and then click Properties.

TCP/IP

By default, XP configures TCP/IP to obtain an IP address automatically. If there's a DHCP server on the network, it will assign the IP address and other TCP/IP settings to the connection. Otherwise, Windows XP will use Automatic Private IP Addressing to assign an IP address to the connection.

This default configuration should work, unchanged, to connect a Windows XP computer to a network that uses TCP/IP for File and Printer Sharing in these common configurations:

One computer on the network is running Internet sharing software, such as Internet Connection Sharing, and provides a DHCP server for assigning TCP/IP settings to the other computers.

A hardware router provides shared Internet access and a DHCP server.

All computers run either Windows 98, 98SE, Me, 2000, or XP, with no DHCP server. The computers can use Automatic Private IP Addressing to assign themselves compatible IP addresses.

Using an Internet sharing program or a hardware router protects the local area network from access by other Internet users, so it's safe to use TCP/IP for File and Printer Sharing on the LAN. The computers have private IP addresses that aren't accessible from the Internet. No other protocol is needed.

If your network uses static IP addresses, click Use the following IP address and enter the configuration information. For example, here are possible settings for a network that uses a proxy server at IP address 192.168.1.1 for Internet access

IPX/SPX

If the existing network uses IPX/SPX for File and Printer Sharing, you can add that protocol to the Windows XP computer. IPX/SPX is fully supported in XP. In the connection's Properties, click the Install button to add a network component. XP will ask what type of network component to install.

Click Protocol and Add.

Click NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol and click OK. Two NWLink items are added to the connection's Properties

NetBEUI

NetBEUI was the default protocol in Windows 95, but Microsoft has been moving away from NetBEUI ever since. Starting with Windows 98, TCP/IP has been the default protocol, and NetBEUI has been available for installation as a supported protocol.

Starting with Windows XP, NetBEUI is unsupported. This doesn't mean that NetBEUI won't work! It means that:

Microsoft recommends against using it.

It doesn't appear in the list of protocols that can be installed.

Microsoft's technical support staff won't answer questions about NetBEUI or help solve problems with it.

Because it's been around for so long, some people think that NetBEUI is required, and they install it on all Windows networks. Actually, nothing in Windows networking has ever required NetBEUI. You can even un-install NetBEUI in Windows 95 and use a different protocol.

If your existing network uses NetBEUI for File and Printer Sharing, consider changing to a different protocol. Most networks can safely use TCP/IP. The main exceptions to this rule are when:

All of the networked computers are connected directly to a cable or DSL modem and receive public IP addresses from an Internet service provider.

You've separated your LAN from the Internet, but you've opened ports or have placed a computer outside the firewall to use certain applications or services.

For more information, read Sections 1-3 of our article on Securing Your LAN. If that article says that you need NetBEUI, consider using IPX/SPX instead - even the gang here at PracticallyNetworked has promoted NetBEUI in the past.

If, after considering all of the options, you decide to install NetBEUI on Windows XP, follow the instructions in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article. If the Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP screen appears when you insert the CD-ROM, click Perform additional tasks followed by Browse this CD.

If you have more than one local area network connection, this procedure will install NetBEUI on all of them. It isn't possible to install NetBEUI on a dial-up connection

You can un-bind NetBEUI from a LAN connection by opening the connection's Properties screen and un-checking the NetBEUI Protocol box.

If you have a new computer that didn't come with a Windows XP CD-ROM, see if the computer manufacturer will send you the CD-ROM or the necessary NetBEUI files. If that isn't possible, you'll have to use a different protocol on your network.

If you need them, here are instructions on implementing NetBEUI in Windows 2000.

Un-Binding a Protocol

By default, Windows XP binds an installed protocol to each network connection and service. You can remove the binding, preventing that service from using that protocol.

Open the Network Connections folder and click Advanced followed by Advanced Settings.

To see the bindings for a connection, click the connection name under Connections. The bindings appear under Bindings.

To remove a binding, un-check the corresponding box. For example, to use IPX/SPX instead of TCP/IP for file sharing, un-bind TCP/IP from both File and Printer Sharing and Client for Microsoft Networks.

How To Setup VPN Server in Windows Server 2003

2009-10-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

Add the Remote Access/VPN Server role to your Windows Server 2003 system

To add the Remote Access/VPN Server role, go to Start | All Programs | Administrative Tools | Configure Your Server Wizard. The first screen of this wizard is for informational purposes only and, thus, is not shown here. Click Next. The same goes for the second screen, which just tells you some things you need to have completed before adding new roles to your server.

On the third screen of the wizard, entitled Server Role, you're presented with a list of available roles for your server along with column that indicates whether or not a particular role has been assigned to this machine. Figure A shows you a screen from a server on which just the IIS Web server role has been added.

To add the Remote Access/VPN Server role to your server, select that role and click the Next button to move on to the next screen in the wizard, which provides you with a quick overview of the options you selected.

Take note: This selection just starts another wizard called the Routing and Remote Access Wizard, described further below.

The Routing and Remote Access Wizard component

Like most wizards, the first screen of the Routing and Remote Access wizard is purely informational and you can just click Next.

The second screen in this wizard is a lot meatier and asks you to decide what kind of remote access connection you want to provide. Since the goal here is to set up a PPTP-based VPN, select the "Virtual Private Network VPN and NAT" selection and click Next.

The next screen of the wizard, entitled VPN Connection, asks you to determine which network adapter is used to connect the system to the Internet. For VPN servers, you should install and use a separate network adapter for VPN applications. Network adapters are really cheap and separation makes the connections easier to secure. In this example, I've selected the second local area network connection (see Figure D), a separate NIC from the one that connects this server to the network. Notice the checkbox labeled "Enable security on the selected interface by setting up Basic Firewall" underneath the list of network interfaces. It's a good idea to enable since option it helps to protect your server from outside attack. A hardware firewall is still a good idea, too.

With the selection of the Internet-connected NIC out of the way, you need to tell the RRAS wizard which network external clients should connect to in order to access resources. Notice that the adapter selected for Internet access is not an option here.

Just like every other client out there, your external VPN clients will need IP addresses that are local to the VPN server so that the clients can access the appropriate resources. You have two options (really three â€" I'll explain in a minute) for handling the doling out of IP addresses.

First, you can leave the work up to your DHCP server and make the right configuration changes on your network equipment for DHCP packets to get from your DHCP server to your clients. Second, you can have your VPN server handle the distribution of IP addresses for any clients that connect to the server. To make this option work, you give your VPN server a range of available IP addresses that it can use. This is the method I prefer since I can tell at a glance exactly from where a client is connecting. If they're in the VPN "pool" of addresses, I know they're remote, for example. So, for this setting, as shown in Figure F below, I prefer to use the "From a specified range of addresses" option. Make your selection and click Next.

If you select the "From a specified range of addresses" option on the previous screen, you now have to tell the RRAS wizard exactly which addresses should be reserved for distribution to VPN clients. To do this, click the New button on the Address Range Assignment screen. Type in the starting and ending IP addresses for the new range and click OK. The "Number of addresses" field will be filled in automatically based on your entry. You can also just enter the starting IP address and the number if IP addresses you want in the pool. If you do so, the wizard automatically calculates the ending IP address. Click OK in the New Address Range window; your entry appears in the Address Range Assignment window. Click Next to continue.

The next screen asks you to identify the network that has shared access to the Internet. This is generally the same network that your VPN users will use to access shared resources.

Authenticating users to your network is vital to the security of your VPN infrastructure. The Windows VPN service provides two means for handling this chore. First, you can use RADIUS, which is particularly useful if you have other services already using RADIUS. Or, you can just let the RRAS service handle the authentication duties itself. Give users access to the VPN services by enabling dial-in permissions in the user's profile (explained below). For this example, I will not be using RADIUS, but will allow RRAS to directly authenticate incoming connection requests.

That's it for the RRAS wizard! You're provided with a summary screen that details the selections you made.

This also completes the installation of the Remote Access/VPN Server role.

User configuration

By default, users are not granted access to the services offered by the VPN; you need to grant these rights to each user that you want to allow remote access to your network. To do this, open Active Directory Users and Computers (for domains) or Computer Management (for stand alone networks), and open the properties page for a user to whom you'd like to grant access to the VPN. Select that user's Dial-In properties page. On this page, under Remote Access Permissions, select "Allow access". Note that there are a lot of different ways to "dial in to" a Windows Server 2003 system; a VPN is but one method. Other methods include wireless networks, 802.1x, and dial-up. This article assumes that you're not using the Windows features for these other types of networks. If you are, and you specify "Allow access", a user will be able to use multiple methods to gain access to your system. I can't go over all of the various permutations in a single article, however.

Up and running

These are the steps needed on the server to get a VPN up and running. Of course, if you have devices such as firewalls between your VPN server and the Internet, further steps may be required; these are beyond the scope of this article, however.