Can OPEN VPN Do This???

[theratburger]

Hi all, I am an automation engineer and I automate and maintain PLC's, HMI's and drives. I am currently using a VPN router to maintain customers remotely. It has a lan and wan side port. The LAN side connects to the industrial network at a client, the wan side just needs internet access, even behind a firewall. The router maintains a connection through the firewall to a home site that I can go to log in to. Once logged in I have VPN access to the industrial network and I can use my programming software to connect to and make modifications to the customers equipment. This way, I can support a customer without them having to have a PC that I can land on with Remote desktop or other software and they don't have to own the support software, I just have to have the software available. This also allows me to support them without getting the IT department to create open ports as the door is opened from the inside and I can then enter from this open door.

I have been looking around to see if there is something that I could use to do the same thing without the hardware that I must purchase. I do installs that are hours away and when I leave the site it would be great to have a way to remote in and make a quick modification without returning to the site. I have not found this software but was hoping maybe open vpn was my answer. Can open vpn do this for me? Can it run on a pc that would then be my bridge to have network access without having to open firewalls up? Just curious. Any ideas or recommendations of how to do this or of other methods would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Just to clarify my question, I am wanting to do something like gotoassist for a customer but not land on a computer, but get VPN access to the network instead using the customers computer as the launch site. I am willing to pay for the service but want to be able to guide a customer through the setup when help is needed.

Brent

[janjust]

any type of VPN software can do this; openvpn has the advantage that it can do L2 network forwarding, so you can pass raw ethernet frames via the VPN tunnel - not all VPNs let you do this.

The main question, however, is whether the IT departments of your customers will like this. If I find out about a (rogue) VPN connection into my LAN I first disconnect the user and then start asking questions.

[morthawt]

How do you disconnect a currently connected user?