If your company has a VPN, you’ll need to connect using it to do things like check your email. Check with the IT staff. If your company has a VPN, and if you’re permitted to use it, they’ll give you the information that lets your Droid X connect to the corporate network over the VPN. They’ll also set up an account for you.
Here’s what you’ll need to set up your Droid X to access the VPN:
The type of technology it uses. The Droid X can work with pretty much any kind of VPN technology out there. Ask whether yours uses PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol), L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol), L2TP/IPSec PSK (pre-shared, key-based Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol over the IP Security Protocol), or L2TP/IPSec CRT (certificate-based Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol over the IP Security Protocol). (You don’t have to memorize these terms. There’s no quiz later.)
Address of the VPN server. The Internet address of the server to which you need to connect, such as vpn.bigsecurehoncho.com.
Name of the VPN server. The name isn’t always needed, but check, just in case.
Account name and password. The IT folks will supply you with this.
Secret. When it comes to VPNs, there are secrets within secrets. If you use a L2TP connection, you’ll need a password called a Shared Secret in addition to your own password in order to connect.
Other special keys. Depending on which VPN protocol you use, you may require additional keys, which are essentially passwords. Again, the IT folks will know this.
DNS search domains. These servers essentially do the magic of letting you browse the Internet and do searches.
Once you’ve got all that, you’re ready to set up the VPN. On the Home screen or a pane, press the Menu key and then choose “Wireless & networks”→VPN Settings→Add VPN. A screen appears asking you which of the VPN protocols you’ll use for the VPN. Choose the one your IT folks told you to use.
After that, you come to a screen that asks for all the information you’ve gotten from your IT folks. When you’ve done all that, press the Menu key, and then tap Save. Your VPN connection and its settings are saved.
From now on, when you want to connect to the VPN, go to the Home screen or a pane, press the Menu key, and then choose “Wireless & networks”→VPN Settings. Tap the VPN to which you want to connect. You may need to enter a user name and password or passwords (these are the ones you’ve been given by the IT folks). When you do that, tap Connect, and you make the connection. The status bar shows you that you’ve got a VPN connection and displays a notification if you’ve been disconnected, so that you can make the connection again. At any point, to disconnect, open the Notification panel, touch the notification for the VPN, and touch it again to disconnect.