piercing corporate FW outbound

[Brian H. Chabot]

Michael ODonnell wrote:
> Crap.  I accepted my current job with the
> understanding that I had a fairly secure home network
> (protected by [A] a firewall and [B] the total
> absence of Microsoft products) to which I expected
> to have access from work via SSH, and I was told
> "no problem".  Two days after I started, though,
> the geniuses in the IT gang started blocking port 22
> (because SSH isn't "secure", you see...)  while somehow
> allowing themselves to believe that a corporate IT
> infrastructure based entirely on a Windows monoculture
> qualifies as an acceptable risk.   Grrrr.....

Have you spoken to the IT people yet?  If you started with the 
understanding you could SSH in, you might want to let IT know about that...

> Anyway, until recently I've still been able to get
> through by having my home server answer on port
> 80, as well, but now the IT geniuses have started
> doing some sort of traffic- or packet-analysis and
> squelching my SSH connection attempts on port 80, too.
> How do they do that?

Probably some sort of packet filterring.

>  and what can I now do to obtain
> my promised access, short of soiling my network by
> bringing a Windows box in and running the officially
> blessed VPN client?

Do as search for the Linux PPTP HowTo.  You may need to recompile your 
kernel to support MMPE.

> I get
> the sense that Nortel/Apani's attitude about Linux
> could best be characterized as a middle finger lifted
> in my general direction...

I get that sense from a LOT of companies.  It makes my skin crawl.


Brian

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