Anyone know of say, a ADSL router that provides a VPN for connecting in? I know there's VPN software you can get for free, which I may do if I can't find a nice hardware box.

I seem to remember reading of open source software that converts your home router to a VPN jobbie. It involves flashing the router software so get that wrong and you have a new paperweight. As for the name I can't recall it so a Google session will be required.

There's a few, a lot of which have sprung from modified code for the Linksys WRT series of routers. The one I use is dd-wrt, which is really very good – although I've not played with the VPN features that much. You can normally pick up a WRT54G or similar for under £50 (quite probably less now) on ebay. Flashing with dd-wrt is really very easy and the set-up is all done via a nicely designed web interface. You pretty much get an enterprise feature set for a home cost.

You will probably need an ethernet ADSL modem to handle your adsl connection though as most of the boxes that run dd-wrt are pure ethernet and wireless routers, not ADSL modems. You probably have this already though.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/

Don't you just need a port mapping (or whatever it's called on your router) that forwards incoming packets on your chosen VPN port to a PC behind your gateway?

I think most routers will do this unless they are prehistoric. RTFM.

Surely you'd need a static IP address for your router? Do any of the ISPs provide this for domestic use?

If you don't have a static ip you can use a dynamic dns service for free like dyndns

Zen will give you a static IP address.

I used to use Zen.. now I get Orange BB for free, which isn't too bad. It sort of ties me to use their crappy livebox since you can't your connection settings from it.

Will check out the dd-wrt thing, thanks 🙂 God bless STW 🙂

If it's just to remote in to a PC, give http://www.logmein.com a try.

The netgear routers all provide VPN connectivity. Along with many others.

It's a mixture though. See above. As simon_g says, the easiest thing will be something like logmein, but you'll have to set up port mapping onthe router itself.

If you want to do it nice and securely you should really get a hardware firewall like one of the Sonicwall series. Put this inbetween your home network and your adsl router and block all incoming traffic at the router apart from vpn traffic which you forward to the firewall to sort out.
Any nasty incoming traffic that gets past the router (and there will probably be some) then has to get past the firewall which is a much tougher proposition altogether – unless you leave them wide open.
Hardware firewalls are cool but they do cost 🙁

The netgear routers all provide VPN connectivity.

They all say they support IPsec but as far as I can tell they just handle the packets so you can connect to your office say from home. I don't think they work as an endpoint.

Sharkbait – that's what I had in mind, I think there's a Cisco ADSL router that has a VPN built in that could work.