Open VPN and shared folders on a home network

[vpn_user2006]

hello,

I use Open VPN for work at my home PC. My pc is connected to a small home network, and I use shared folders in a workgroup (Windows XP Home).

Can employees at my workplace access my shared folders on my home pc?

Thanks in advance!

[Variable]

Good question. I do not have an XP Home to test that. But on the face of it I would say yes they could access the VPN connected machine but probably not the other machines on your home LAN. Couple issues. XP Home uses unauthenticated access which means it is wide open. By default windows shares your drives with a hidden share name. The drive followed by a $. Your workgroup may show up in their network neighborhood, but if they knew your IP they could also probably open \\yourIP\c$ and see your entire drive not only your shared folders when your connected. Easy to test. Right click My Computer, click Properties, click Computer name and jot down your computer name. Before you leave for work access the VPN on your home machine and head off to work. When you get to work see if your machine shows up in My Network Places. Go to start and run and type cmd and hit enter. Type ping yourcomputername (hit enter)
(the one you wrote down at home) if the machine is connected you should get the IP address of your home machine.
Click Start and Run. Type \\yourcomputername\c$ does it come up?
Type \\yourIPaddress\c$ does it come up?

[vpn_user2006]

What about my Norton Internet Security Firewall?

When I created my home network, I had to specifically allow each PC through Norton to recognize each other.

If people at the office can acess my home pc, that would really be bad.

[Variable]

Your firewall may stop it. However, if your able to access resources through the VPN connection with NIS on, then I suspect you allowed this communication through NIS. Without testing it you will not know for sure.

[vpn_user2006]

Thanks variable. I have no way of testing because I work off-site. :(

[mrmomaz]

This topic has my interest as I have the same type of VPN network; although I have XP/PRO/SP2.

If I can read \\myIpAddress\C$ from work, is there any way to stop this from happening? What effect would there be to "not allow sharing" of that drive? (Not allow sharing.) Have another partition for VPN/WORK only? My router is set to "allow only this computer" - does this prevent others on ther VPN from having access to my data?

[Variable]

Sure with XP Pro it is pretty simple. You just do not allow read access on the root of your drives to Everyone. If you right click your C
: drive for instance and click Properties and then Security you will see who has permission to your drive. By default you should see Admin, CREATOR OWNER, Everyone, SYSTEM and Users.
By default with XP Pro VPN users wouldn't have access. Everyone should have no access.

[mrmomaz]

....By default you should see Admin, CREATOR OWNER, Everyone, SYSTEM and Users..... .

Thanks for the reply Variable. Nice to know that xp/pro will protect me by default.

I right clicked on C:->properties -> and got tabs for "general, tools, hardware, norton, sharing, quota", but I seem to be missing the Secutity tab. I could find no reference to Admin, CREATOR OWNER, Everyone, SYSTEM and Users. If I click on sharing and security, I get the same display as if I had clicked on properties. But it appears like I am OK anyway. see attachements.
thanks

Sorry, no attachments as I can not make them small enough for PCGUIDE. Any suggestions on how to do this?

[Variable]

If you see no Security tab you are probably using Simple File Sharing. This is akin to using XP Home.

[mrmomaz]

Yes, we are using simple file sharing. And I guess I don't know where to go from here. I'm sure appreciate which direction to start working on. thanks in advance.

[Variable]

Well, depending on how tech savvy you are I would suggest you stop using Simple File Sharing. If your network is all XP Pro, your good, if you have XP home machines that need to connect to your machine you will have to keep SFS. Here is a good site that goes into enough detail for the average user on moving to normal file sharing and away from SFS. It walks you through concepts and the indvidual parts of the set up.

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/index.htm