VPN to Single Application and/or Fileserver?
Hi I am very new to VPN technology and have been asked to setup a VPN to enable four branch offices to access a fileserver and application server located at a fifth office. We have purchased a Linksys VPN router for the fifth office and want to setup the computers in the branch offices to tunnel in to the VPN router. All of the PCs are running Windows XP Pro with SP2. I would prefer to use the VPN technology built in to Windows XP if at all possible for simplicit4y's sake. Here are my questions/concerns:
1) I have heard that PPTP (the VPN technology used by Windows) was severely broken at some point. Has it been fixed by SP2? Would you guys reccomend using it?2) My limited understanding of VPN technology tells me that once a computer has established a VPN tunnel from a branch office to the fifth office, that computer will be relying soley on the Internet connection of the fifth office for any and all web browsing/email/etc. Is this correct? If possible I would prefer that the branch office computer rely solely on their local Internet connections for web browsing, and only use the fifth office's web connection for accessing the file and application servers located in that fifth office.