How to setup a VPN on standard install

Question

hi guys,
long time reader but first time poster.
my company bought a xserve as soon as leopard came out, we'd been sucked in by all the hype leading up to it. by the time i was doing an install a day trying to get it to work (i ultimately lost count of how many i've did all up), we realised we were in over our heads.
to cut it short, i finally got our xserve running in standard config doing the usually stuff, sharing files to macs and pcs, hosting an internal mail server, ichat server and ical server. all the basic stuff you need it to do, but not much more than you could on a regular that didn't cost $5000+ (we're poor aussies don't forget so we get gipped).
i know want to set her up to work as a vpn, keeping in mind that it currently does not serve as our dhcp server (this is performed by a basic wireless router). i'm scared as **** of doing anything dns related as even saying that acronym makes my head hurt and begin to cry (i'm sure most first time server admins, and probably even some seasoned vets, know what i mean).
what i'm after is a little guidance in turning our boring standard server into a decent unit that actually does what those marketing *$%#s claimed would be so easy and painless to setup (no offense to any marketing personnel reading this, i'm sure you're all good people at heart!!!).
just to clarify, my isp provides us a static ip address and our company's website is hosted externally via a hosting company, who also host our email.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
nige

Answer 1

I've had some success if anybody is interested.
In my standard config of leopard server, the VPN option was turned off, and when I filled out the details to turn it on, it usually told me that I had something incorrect... one of the reasons for this I believe is because i was using the admin password for the shared key (sounds obvious now i know and also pretty stupid for even trying to do it). anyway, with this fixed it allowed me to turn on the VPN via the toggle switch and create the client config file. yah!!!! initial success.
next i forward the necessary ports on my router to the server (just to be clear, leopard isn't performing any network tasks, i.e. NAT, DNS, DHCP etc, other than those setup automatically in the std config).
with that done it was time to test the VPN, I installed the client file, filled out the appropriate fields, and bam we were on!!!
if i've been a bit vague or missed a step (i'm reliving yesterday's experience now and it's very likely that this has happened) just ask and i'll try to double back and fill in the gaps.
hope this instills some hope in fellow users that the BS sent out by marketing is achievable, maybe not when you want or as easily as you wanted it, but it can be done.
the current thing i'm stumped on now is why in the finder, the shared network drive tab disappears when you're connect to a vpn. i would have thought that the ability to search for network devices would have still been available on this. sure i can connect to the server manually, but i love simple stuff.
nige