RE: Netserver problem

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sat, 20 Apr 2002, Vernon Hamberg wrote:

> Yes, ETHERNET is the NT domain when I look in NetServer setup in Ops Nav.
>
> Someone else said that my ISP (ATT Broadband, in the Twin Cities,
> Minnesota) filters NETBIOS. So I'm stuck with if I use plain vanilla TCP/IP.
>
> Would VPN protect me from the filtering? I think we want to get that going?
> Do you recommend any Win98 clients?

Running file sharing (meaning windows SMB or NFS) over the internet is
completely nuts.  Both are fairly chatty protocols and are not designed
for the kind of latentcies and problems that go along with the internet.
But worst of all both are massive security risks.  Both protocols depend
on trust relationships between computers.  Neither protocol contains
methods for verifying that a certain machine really is who it claims to
be.  This is why the SMB protocol is rightfully blocked.

The security problems can largely be overcome through implementation of a
VPN.  A VPN can encrypt and redirect your filesharing traffic in a way
that can be transparent to both your client and the server.  This won't
solve the problem of the high bandwidth requirements of both SMB and NFS.

James Rich
james@eaerich.com