So I just got a pretty shiny all-in-one LaserJet at ridiculous HP discount, and would like to be able to let a friend use it who has no printer [and lives a mere two miles away with a spare key].

I have been reading up on OpenVPN but that seems to involve downloading a bunch of crep and certs onto their laptop to be able to connect. XP has some manner of built-in VPN as well which looks to be much easier to configure, however I don't actually keep a Windows machine running at home continuously. My only Windows box is for gaming and I shut it down when not in use to save power.

Is there any way to use the built-in XP networking to connect to an OpenVPN server? Alternately is there an entirely different and more intelligent solution?

Thanks for any ideas!

I thought Windows had built in sharing printer over the internets functionality?

I believe it does, however my printer is connected to the LAN, and I don't have a dedicated Windows machine to leave running all the time just to share it out over.

well then you're screwed

Windows can share a printer over a LAN. I don't know if it can already share a printer over an IP network - that is, it will work through a switch or hub, not a router.

If your printer is plugged into the network and not a computer, you shouldn't need a computer on to use it.

CUPS server over SSH

That's actually what I'm looking into right now. Ideally I would like to run CUPS off of either my firewall or NAS box, but I am still researching which distro might actually support that as I don't think either pfSense or FreeNAS do.

Hitachi?

Hamachi, and I don't know if that works or not.

I was close.

There are, of course, many ways to do what you want. The most simple is probably to just use Hamachi, it's a ridiculously low configuration VPN.

e::argh:Vin and Rob. That's what happens when I open a bunch of threads at once and reply to them without refreshing. Anyway, yeah, it'll work.

He has to come over to get the papers he prints anyway... so your just cutting out one step... whats the point?

Grant: Point would be that then they could print things out throughout the day/week whatever and only have to stop by once to pick them up.

Vin: Hamachi's not a bad idea at all, though. I'm pretty sure there's a Linux version of it now even.

This will work great until someone DOSes your printer with horse porn.

I see no advantage in this other than giving someone else the power to print strange things on your printer at strange hours of the morning.

Why doesn't he put stuff on a thumbdrive, cd or floppy, drive over and print it? It's not like you're mailing the stuff back to him.

There is. Last time I used it it was a command line app, but I'm pretty sure there's a GUI for the linux version now.

yeah... ok... so why bother? put all the stuff on a flash drive, come over and print them all at once... same thing, less complicated.

You're breaking 90 printer infringement laws. I'm calling the RIAA.