[KLUG Members] remote laptop over internet?

[Adam Tauno Williams]

>Hi all. I'm lost, and would like some advise on the direction I should now 

Go west young man!

>take. Here is some history, some pertinent some mabye not.
>-I currently have 4 machines running Linux, 

Great.

>and 1 winders (stubborn user)

Nature of the beast.

> -2 Desktops running eD2.4, Kernel 2.4.5 Win4Lin 3.0

Whats eD2.4?

>-Windows 98SE on teh desktop machines for Fire Department Legacy App. (no-one 
>builds a "resonable" priced system for native Linux yet)

Have no idea what that is,  I'll assume it's like a normal Win32 thingy.

>-1 File Server/FireWall (I know not ideal) with a Dial-up connection. ppp is  
>running on demand, and is connected at least 90% of the time.

MMMmmmmmmm.....

>-1 IBM TP600 running SuSe 7.2 Proffessional, Win4Lin3.0, Windows 98SE

Dual boot or it runs Win98SE in Win4Lin? (I assume the later)

>All machines are 10bT.
>My ISP account is dynamic IP, and my internal LAN is static with "my own" 
>pics from teh 192.168.?.? range.

Good choice.

>Thats the basics. 
>Here is what I want to do. 
>I frequently work 24Hr. shifts at University of ND FD. During that time I 

University of North Dakota?!  

>frequently do my local FD paperwork on the laptop. However when I arrive back 
>at teh office I have to start the individual apps and then I mount teh 
>server, backup each app to teh server drive, tehn fire up the apps on teh 
>desktop (which use the server for teh DATA drives anyway) and restore teh 
>data from the backups created via the laptop. While this does work it is a 
>bit clumsey and time consuming.

Sounds like it,  it is also a little confusing.

>So my question, can I use ssh, or something like that to connect to the 
>server and mount the server nfs drive via the laptop. or does someone else 
>have a better idea?

Nope, SSH is the best idea.  
Other options include 1.) a VPN 2.) a Kerberos Domain, 3.) VNC

1 & 2 or SSH let you do NFS mounting, etc... 3 is true remote control.

A revelent question is how is the Laptop connected to the internet?  We
are talking about doing this remotely right?  If that is what we are
talking about bandwidth is a big deal,  a fast university lan gives you
more options that a poky old dial-up.

> know nothing about IP tunneling but I think this is possible because the 
>Server dialup is up most of the time. But how do I find teh server since it 
>internally is a 192.168... IP, and externally dynamic?

Since your server is the firewall (yes?) you simply need to register a
host name to the dynamic IP (see www.hn.org) so you can find your way
home.  You can have this happen whenever the server connects by tossing
it in the pppd scripts.