I work from home almost 100% of the time. Picture this:
On Home LAN
***********
linux desktop: multimedia computer
win7 desktop: my main home computer with great speakers
laptop: logged into work via company VPN
When I'm on my laptop, I hijack Win7's monitor, which is huge, because I hate small screens. I use Teamviewer to play music on my Win7 desktop as follows:
1. On my laptop, I use Teamviewer to log into win7.
2. On win7 (from within Teamviewer) I start winamp.
3. I play an mp3 sitting on my Linux server (via Linux's CIFS share)
If I hadn't used Teamviewer, and instead was sitting at my win7 machine, we know what would happen. Packets of the mp3 would be going from Linux, to my home switch, to Win7. Total distance for the TCP packets: 2 meters.
But since I used Teamviewer to do this, from a computer that is logged into a VPN, I have a feeling things aren't so simple. Last week I noticed that winamp was having trouble getting audio fast enough for smooth playback. I was ftping something onto my Win7 desktop, but still, I have an amazing internet connection, and the TCP packets carrying the mp3 were supposedly going a total distance of 2 meters. There's no reason for the music to stutter.
So now I'm curious. Were packets going from Linux to Win7? Or were packets going from Linux, to Win7, to laptop, to external VPN, back to home network, back to Win7? Total distance would be many hundreds of kilometers.
I know that sounds crazy, but there's no reason for the music to have stuttered like that.
Furthermore, when I first did this, the music began playing on my crummy laptop before I found the Teamviewer configuration option to NOT play music on the computer I'm Teamviewing from. That seems to indicate that the music was somehow reaching the laptop, and that could only happen (I think) if they were on the VPN.
Aside from the fact that playback quality is affected, I'd prefer if my music didn't go over the VPN...
I hope I described this OK.
