Virtual private networks (VPNs) are a means for connecting to a remote network and making it look like a local one. This means you can connect to your work location and have full access to resources (if so configured on the work side), such as shared printers, work files, etc. There are a number of VPN products freely available; some are kernel-level like openswan and can be fairly difficult to configure. OpenVPN, available at https://openvpn.net/, doesn't require patching the kernel and can be extremely straightforward. Configuration is more difficult if you want to use a lot of its features, but for a quick client/server VPN, you can be up and running in minutes.

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