i'm a bit at a loss as to which is best for my needs and, if any would would actually do everything i'd like.

i manage a business with (currently) two locations, both of which have a wrt54g as their router.  ideally, we'd like both networks to seamlessly talk to each other (shared folders, client/server applications, etc.) as, right now, people are having to email files back and forth, call folks to run reports, etc.

we'd prefer a single file server at our main office that the remote office can access as well, the accountant at the main office to be able to pull sales reports from the remote office, people able to browse shared folders from either locations, people able to print to a printer at either location, etc.

is it at all possible (either via openwrt or by some other means) to set this up?  i've read here and elsewhere that certain means of doing this don't allow browsing of shared folders but do allow the client/server aspect while others don't allow client/server applications to talk to each other but they do allow browsing for files, etc.

the only (possible) monkey wrench is that we have voip coming in to both locations, not sure if that changes anything.

any advice would be appreciated as my eyes are getting burned out from digging through the forums to no avail

oh, and ... yes, there's always an "and" isn't there ...

i'd like the ability of a remote user (ie. someone not at either location) to be able to connect as well.

You need a VPN mate. OpenVPN is your best bet here. Use WhiteRussian dev for now - bit easier than Kamakaze, and the docs are all penned for WR anyway. Check out the WiKi, follow the guide, and let us know how you get on.

Good Luck.

C.

http://openvpn.net/bridge.html

--Danny, effectively solving the same problem while he moves from one data center to another

crichton, dannysauer ... thanks for your quick responses!

sorry for what will most likely be a silly question but, do i install openvpn on the wrt's at both locations?  i read through the faq and it doesn't really state; i'd assume one would be acting as a vpn server but i'm a bit unsure as to how to connect the second router to the first.

also, since both networks are separate from each other, how does the ip addressing work out?  the faq's on the openvpn site state setting aside a block of ip's for the connecting clients but, from how i'm looking at this, there's only one client (the second wrt router).