motech wroteYou're absolutely right blumman, I don't need a perpetual VPN. I also found another blog about using the Windows native PPTP VPN, and I will try that. However, I'm somewhat concerned about routers & firewalls blocking the path and the logistics of making a VPN connection from an IP address that changes all the time on the host (customer's network) side.
It probably involves port forwarding on the remote router but you would have to do the same to get OpenVPN to work. If you could load the remote router with e.g. DD-WRT or Tomato you could fire up a PPTP server in the router itself (or an OpenVPN server). From there you could allow your Mac to access the whole remote subnet if you wanted to. You're right, to overcome the dynamic IP address you would need some kind of DDNS service.
motech wroteI'm certain that virtually all routers & firewalls provide a means of passing PPTP through, but is that path going to be open regardless of where I connect? I use public hotspots often. Will I need to have ports 47 and 1723 to be open on my customer's router to use Windows PPTP VPN?
Most routers will let you establish a connection from its local subnet going out but when connecting from the outside you need to specify which internal host to connect to by forwarding the ports needed. I'm not too sure about which ports PPTP use but that shouldn't be that difficult to find out.
motech wroteThe host computer's VPN would be bound to the host's local IP address, not the public Internet address, right? Can a connection to the PPTP VPN be established using the public IP address or is the local address involved somehow?
Right, as long as that Windows 7 host is behind a router you will need forward the necessary ports. That is of course if you don't put that host in the routers DMZ scope. If you do that I think you can access the Windows 7 host with the routers public address.
To be honest, it sounds like you make it more complicated than it is but then again, I'm not too sure what you want to achieve. Wouldn't it be enough with just having a RDP or VNC connection to the Windows 7 client if you are the only person who will use this client?
