Patent ID: 7444415

Claim:
A method of providing access to a plurality of clients, through a virtual private network tunnel, from a central computer site, comprising the steps of: establishing a private address range to be used for address assignment between a private interface device and at least one client station, the private address range including an existing range of addresses pre-assigned to said at least one client station; forming a virtual private network tunnel between the private interface device and a central computer site; communicating network configuration information including a private address of the VPN device and the private address range of remote stations coupled to the VPN device from the private interface device to the central computer site via the virtual private network tunnel; comparing the network configuration information including the private address range to attributes in a stored profile at the central computer site to check the validity of the VPN device; and selectively establishing communication to the VPN device based on the comparing by allowing connections from the central computer site through the private interface device to the at least one client station using an address from said private address range.