Hi Liam,

Usually, to connect to a linux box from a windows network, a samba share is used. Did I hear you say that you are not confortable with samba because of security concerns? I think sambe is very secure.

Anyway, you could purchase a couple of router with VPN built in. Build a VFN between two windows boxes. Once your authenticated in, you should have access to the linux samba share, if it is configured to allow the romote user access.

Also, you could use the ssh daemon to telnet into the linux box. This would provide ssl encryption between the window remote box and the linux system. You would need a telnet client that could handle SSL2 before the connection could be make. Then you could run linux apps on the window box using character based interface, or if the telnet cleint had X emulation, you could run native linux apps on the windows remote system. This is equivalent to running a Window 2K terminal server. I think prot 22 is used for ssh connections.

Also, linux can mount just about any kind of file system, so it is possible for linux to mount a windows drive so it would appear as if it was part of the linux drive. I'm not sure if Windows can mount a linux drive, but I don't think so, so you have to use smbd (e.g. samba) to allow the window OS to access the linux drive. Once a drive is mounted on a Linux partition it becomes available to the Linux OS.

It wasn't long ago that linux needed a Window's primary domain control to function properly, because the window's primary domain controller was necessary to handle all authentications into the network, and essentially this is still true today, except where an election is made to make the linux box the primary domain controller. However, if you elect to make the Linux box the primary domain controller there is no way to backup a Linux Primary domain control, because Linux cannot act as a backup domain controller. Also, it is not possible to have a Window's box act as a backup domain controller to a Linux primary domain controller.