[Macpartners] VPN Clients for Windows and Mac OS X available to use MIT VPN Service

[Jonathan McIndoe Hunt]

Date: Thursday, 22 July 2004
To: MIT Community: itpartners at mit.edu, winpartners at mit.edu, 
macpartners at mit.edu, sw-release-announce at mit.edu
From: VPN Client Release Team <vpn-release at mit.edu>
Subject: VPN Clients for Windows and Mac OS X available to use MIT VPN Service
Cc: is&t at mit.edu, vpn-release at mit.edu
----
Hello,

In preparation for the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Boston next 
week with the anticipation that some staff and faculty who normally do not 
work from off campus will be trying to work from a far, we have made the 
Virtual Private Network (VPN) clients for Windows and Mac OS X available 
with a set of installation instructions.  We will be following up with a 
normal software release effort that will include more documentation and 
customized installers for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

About the VPN
-----------------------------
MIT deployed a <http://itinfo.mit.edu/product?name=vpn>Virtual Private 
Network to assist MIT clients with connectivity from off campus. The VPN 
provides a solution to work through the various port blocks and other 
things that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do to protect their clients 
and try to prevent spam, virus outbreaks, and other network abuse. These 
preventative measures often interrupt or prevent legitimate work from 
happening. The MIT VPN can help resolve a number of problems associated 
with e-mail, Windows file sharing, and other network-based applications 
without needing to determine the particular preventative measures your ISP 
has implemented.

Put another way, the VPN provides clients with a way to have a consistent 
set of policies for their Internet connectivity regardless of where they 
are connecting from.


Where to get VPN Clients
-----------------------------
You can download the VPN clients and associated MIT VPN Profile from the 
MIT Software Download site.  You need both the client and the profile to be 
able to connect.

http://web.mit.edu/software/

Documentation, which at the time is limited to installation instructions, 
is available from

http://itinfo.mit.edu/product?name=vpn


Where to get Help
----------------------------
If you need assistance with installing or using the VPN, please contact the 
Computing Help Desk at computing-help at mit.edu or (617) 253-1101.

If you will be working from home next week, we encourage you to try things 
out tonight and tomorrow when we have time to help resolve any issues that 
arise.  The Computing Help Desk will be open as usual next week to assist 
with problems, but some tasks may require changes to systems on campus, 
such as setting up a file share on a machine in your office.

Thanks,
Jon

__________________________________________
Jonathan McIndoe Hunt     617.253.0172
Manager of Client Software Services
Information Services & Technology, MIT
http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/software/