Hi, I have a small firm of lawyers that will implement few offices in 3 countries. In each country, they will have 2 or 3 pcs. What would be the easiest setups you would recommend for me to network those small networks on a world-wide basis (the LAN part is ok...I just need help for networking them between countries...pls see details below) Details of our networks: -Paris: Two windows XP pcs with their local Linux print and Samba server (data sharing + authentication). This is a pure ethernet 10 Base T twisted-pair type LAN with tcp-ip as the network protocol. A simple dumb hub do the relay between the hosts. -Chicago: 1 linux workstation + 1 winME workstation + Window NT4 PDC(data sharing + authentication). This is a pure ethernet 10 Base T twisted-pair type LAN with tcp-ip as the network protocol. A simple dumb hub do the relay between the hosts. -Acapulco: 1 linux workstation, 1 win xp workstation + a Debian Linux sever for authentication, data sharing. Now, I have a small budget of $USD3000 to have those spread-apart networks networking in one big network for sharing datas, locally exchange emails, accessing common databases...etc. Apart of the old dialup style-type networking where one host would use his modem to remotely access the modem of another host, what would you suggest me and that would fit in the $USD 3000 basket. Since this is not a huge network+ my money is limited+ I am just a junior sysadmin, I know from the beginning that high speed fiber optics or the latest hard-to-set techy networkings are not what I should seek for. Thanks for helping

You will be needing to be looking at VPN (Virtual Private Network). It allows remote computers to communicate over the Internet as if they were just part of the local network. One of the sites would be designated ans a VPN server and the other two would be VPN clients. Either Windows or Linux can be setup to use VPN but you will be better able decide what once you have done a bit if reading and know a little more about it. You will need to by extra hardware (VPN capable routers if you don't already have them) and VPN software but I believe it will come within your $3000 budget. Stuart

Stuart is absolutely correct. VPN's are the way to go. Most modern highspeed internet routers are capable of supporting VPN connections....or at the very least, VPN passthrough. They can be bought quite cheaply. I have a Dlink DI 604 and it allows VPN passthrough with either IPSec or PPTP and it was only about $50 CAD. If you find you have some $ left over after getting your WAN connectivity setup between the remote sites, you might look at upgrading the NIC's on the local PC's in each site to 100 Mbps.