Windows L2TP IPsec VPN connection to Openswan Sever on Ubuntu

Previously I have setup Openswan on Linux to provide an L2TP IPsec VPN server to allow secure access to my LAN and to tunnel my internet traffic whilst using my Android phone on foreign Wi-Fi. The aim was to secure my internet session against packet sniffing and to provide security whilst using wireless networks with weak or no encryption. I also use a Windows XP netbook whilst travelling this is how I configured it to connect to the same Openswan server via an L2TP IPsec connection...

Windows XP and Samba "is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource."

I've recently been struggling to access my Ubuntu Samba server from Windows XP clients experiencing intermittent success and at times receiving the message "is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource." Reading through the Samba documentation it appears that the Encrypt Passwords parameter must be set when using Windows clients, read on for the solution...

iTunes and moving the iPhone/iPad backup location via symlinks

 

iTunes has recently been eating up the C drive of one of my machines with backups of an iPad. The C drive in question is purposely small at around 15gb to allow for a Windows XP install only; with all other data being stored on other drive letters. This is partly to improve fragmentation and to maximise the performance of read/write operations. iTunes stores the backups of Apple devices within the user profile of the current user.

NeoRouter simple VPN setup integrating Android, Windows, Linux and OSX

Looking to move away from Hamachi I've been looking around for alternative free zero config VPN tools since LogMeIn has taken over Hamachi and I suspect the days of the free Hamachi are limited. NeoRouter is a cross-platform zero-configuration VPN solution that securely connects Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD computers at any locations into a virtual LAN and provides a networking platform for various applications like remote desktop, shared folders and printers, offsite backup, voice & video chat, etc. I like NeoRouter since 1) it's free 2) you can host your own server and 3) it has a free Android client these are all thumbs up from my perspective.
Read on for the configuration of the client and server...