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VPN Solutions for Small/Medium Businesses?

artbeall asks: "I work for a small company and we are looking at various commercial VPN solutions, however many seem to be too expensive for us. I am interested in what solutions other small/medium size companies are using for their VPN. Of course, we want a SECURE system that is compatible with common network gear like Cisco as well as being able to run the VPN client on Linux, Solaris, and Windows. Does anyone have suggestions or ideas?"

126 comments

  1. One word: PIX by overlord2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Depending on what you mean by a 'small' company, I would look into using a Cisco PIX 506E. On CDW right now, they're ~$830. It sounds like it would meet all of your needs. I've used the PIX 506E for several smaller sites and it 'just works.'

    --
    -- "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -A.Einstein
    1. Re:One word: PIX by zerocool^ · · Score: 4, Informative


      Yeah, either that, or you could tell your boss you need a Pix, buy the same thing, with the same innards, by the same company, and buy yourself a nice 24" LCD with the leftover $700.

      30 concurrant VPN connections. Dual internet ports that can function as failover or load balancing. Built in 4-pt switch. $180. That's small business.

      ~Will

      --
      sig?
    2. Re:One word: PIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Yeah, either that, or you could tell your boss you need a Pix, buy the same thing, with the same innards, by the same company, and buy yourself a nice 24" LCD with the leftover $700."

      Well, the hardware specs are different (e.g., the 4-port switch), the feature set is different, and the firmware size is dramatically different. Yeah, must be the same innards all right. Same exact thing.

    3. Re:One word: PIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you want to go even cheaper, there are things like the Juniper Netscreens, a 5GT can be had for around 400-500 depending on licensing, even something like a Sonicwall is cheaper. I prefer the netscreen I haven't had a problem connecting it to PIX and other VPN solutions.

    4. Re:One word: PIX by Jjeff1 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's similar to a Pix 501, but certainly not a pix 506e. If I could pick up a pix 501 for under $200 though for my house, it seems like a good deal. A shiny green cisco logo not required for equipment in my attic.
      But for any size business I don't think a pix 501 is a good choice for a VPN concentrator.

      If the submittor already has a Windows network, which is likely, is there any reason not to use the PPTP already built into the Windows servers?

    5. Re:One word: PIX by whoever57 · · Score: 1

      I have been struggling with QuickVPN and a RV042 recently. Basically, it works in some cases and not others.

      I eventually solved the problems, but the solution involved bypassing the client side QuickVPN software. There are plenty of postings on the web about the problem and Linksys support are basically unresponsive. However, I am pretty sure I know the root cause of the problem.

      On the plus side, I can't see any evidence that the tunnels that I have created using my home-brew solution are counted against the limit of 50 tunnels.

      For a hint on the homebrew solution, look at the "wget*" and ipsec.conf files that QuickVPN creates in its install directory, then take a look at what the ipsec.exe utility does. Some of the postings on the web also provide the clues.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    6. Re:One word: PIX by sumdumass · · Score: 2, Informative
      If the submittor already has a Windows network, which is likely, is there any reason not to use the PPTP already built into the Windows servers?
      There are some limitations with the windows built in pptp services. This isn't even starting to mention that it is less secure (but sufficient in most cases) then a full blown IPSec using certificates.

      One linitation I think we ran into is a praticle limit of about 5 or 6 conections at the same time. On ours, It would either drop conections to allow more then that or just crap out the entire server (win2003 server on a dell power edge Dual P4s and 1.5 gig ram). Dell confirmed this and the consultants they had install it confirmed it. We ended up using goto my pc for several workstations that were telecomuting wich opened the PPTP enough for the others needing it. I'm not happy with using goto my pc but i don't make them calls.
    7. Re:One word: PIX by NeonSpirit · · Score: 2, Informative
      Be carefull with any Cisco PIX devices, whilst they work well and run the same code accross the product range (mostly) licensing and maintenance can be a pain. Funtionality is also dependant upon product, i.e. Failover is not available at the bottom end.

      Maintenance is especcaly irritating when it comes to the Cisco VPN client, you cannot obtain a legitimate copy from the Cisco website, without a maintenence agreement. And there are fairly frequent updates.

      --
      I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered.....my life is my own.
    8. Re:One word: PIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats rediculous. I have managed a high volume pptp windows 2000 server, which I migrated to 2003, for several years. It might have been an isolated problem but in my experience they easily handled 50 active connections at a time with minimal CPU load. Of couse the network load was user based and internet bandwidth limited but I never got speed complaints from users.

    9. Re:One word: PIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I have an RV042 and a PIX 501 at home.

      The RV042 is a horrible product. It reboots constantly, getting the VPN to work is a nightmare, and Linksys support is absolutely horrible. Linksys can't seem to be able to put out a decent VPN product.

      The PIX 501 just works. VPN was an easy to setup and there is lots of free support on the web and in the newsgroups.

      Based on my experience with the 501, the 506 would be a much better solution.

      Linksys != Cisco.

    10. Re:One word: PIX by nologin · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you are going to try to go with Cisco for VPN, I'd recommend going with an ISR (Integrated Services Router) before going with a PIX. You can get a good 830 series (for a really small setup) or an 1811/1812 for the same price as the PIX 506E, but it offers a lot more features. Firewall, VPN, IPS, built-in switch, router, and wireless (on the 1811/1812). It can't all be bad.

      Oh, and to answer the cross-platform question, there are VPN clients for Windows, Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X.

    11. Re:One word: PIX by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Well, it is on a full T1 line. That does have quite a bit of bandwidth but by all means isn't fast. When i said it crapped out, i ment the server falted with an error and stoped all PPTP conections. Maybe it is a license issue? Either way, we are using somethign else with it because thats what they said needed to be done.

      PS, i'm not allowed to mess with this server other then reading logs (wich didn't show any related to the connection problem), It is under warenty and the BossMan says they are going to use that warenty up!

    12. Re:One word: PIX by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Shit, I remeber the problem now, It was with the dynamic addresses availible.

    13. Re:One word: PIX by jerkychew · · Score: 1

      Some disclaimers first:

      * I don't know Cisco at all
      * I've never used this particular router
      * I'm more of a Sonicwall guy than anything

      That being said, I set up a Linksys VPN router / 8-port switch at a client site. Overall it was a pretty good unit, but the issue was with the Linksys VPN software. Not only is it very crippled compared to Sonicwall's client software - I assume they do this on purpose to get you to go with a full featured Cisco - But the software appears to just be a wrapper for Win XP's default IPSEC implementation. If you have ANYTHING else on a PC that uses IPSEC you'll run into lots of problems. My machine has no problem with Sonicwall & Netscreen IPSEC clients installed (but not running) at the same time, but trying to have these on the same machine with a Linksys VPN client causes nothing but problems.

      Second, Linksys tech support is absolutely horrible. Netscreen has exceptional tech support, but they aren't cheap. Sonicwall's support is middle of the road - It takes a day for them to get back to you, but they're usually pretty good when they do.

      This may not apply to your specific needs, but it's been enough of an issue for me that I felt I should point it out.

    14. Re:One word: PIX by ostiguy · · Score: 1

      Cisco is actually not that bad:

      I have determined that Watchguard apparently charges 30% for the annual maintenance and software rights - so while it might be cheaper upfront, the costs add up. Cisco's contract is in the high teens annually.

      Netscreen will charge you the current years maintenance, and all the back years' if you want to get an old/user netscreen's service reinstated.

      I know cisco sells a one time upgrade SKU, if you just want to upgrade the firmware on your hardware (I am not sure if it is available for the vpn client), and my understanding is that they will sell you a 12 month smart net contract without having to pay any reinstatement fees / past years a la netscreen.

    15. Re:One word: PIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SonicWall support may be middle of the road for SMBs, but for large enterprises they suck big time. I work with a large installation of SonicWall equipment and often we know as much or more about how things work than the engineers. Their management interfaces do not scale past about 75-100 nodes and their enterprise management software is so broken the we only use it as a last resort. I strongly recommend against SonicWall unless you're talking about a handful of sites.

    16. Re:One word: PIX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      There are some limitations with the windows built in pptp services. This isn't even starting to mention that it is less secure (but sufficient in most cases) then a full blown IPSec using certificates.


      That depends entirely upon how you set it up - Microsoft use pptp with certificates for their employee remote access, and if you set it up in this way it more than matches IPSec, and has the advantages of being simpler to configure and more resilient over NAT and other network nasties.
  2. Try Hamachi. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've been trying Hamachi. It seems to work as advertised. It makes a connection between a computer behind a hardware and software firewall with a cable ISP and another computer behind a hardware and software firewall with a DSL ISP. Both hardware firewalls have NAT (Network Address Translation. I know not everyone who reads Slashdot works with this.)

    However, the cable ISP is Comcast. Comcast, in this area, seems to throttle or stop anything besides HTTP traffic.

  3. Openvpn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why not use openvpn ? We run this on Linux, Openbsd and Windows.

    1. Re:OpenVPN by jamesh · · Score: 2, Informative

      I second that. Dead easy to set up, and does almost everything you could want.

      The one and only 'gotcha' I found, is in situations where PTMU isn't working right and you are using compression on the tunnel packets. The MTU of the tunnel thinks it's 1500, but it should really be 1500 less the tunnel overhead. A ping shows that a 1500 byte packet gets though, but only because it's easily compressible data. When you start moving actual data around suddenly connections hang for no readily obvious reason. It could send a nerd mad!

  4. IPCOP by mcamino · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hey. We run a medium sized ISP out of wilmington, delaware and we have hads GREAT luck using IPCOP and Linksys BEFSX41 endpoints. The linksys routers are easy to setup and configure and they can be bought cheaply on ebay or any staples or compusa. IPCOP is completely linux based , The setup is more idiot proof then a windows install, and it has a web based admin which rivals standard stand-alone routers. Ipcop can run on tons of hardware configurations. We personally run it with 5 Network cards and it handles the VAST MAJORITY OUR OUR ROUTING needs. did i mention ipcop is free? Give it a try.

    1. Re:IPCOP by mmurphy000 · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I use IPCop to link five regional offices. Net-to-net VPN with IPCop is great. "Road-warrior" IPCop with Windows clients is tough to get set up, which is why some people run OpenVPN in concert with IPCop, or use client-side hardware as the parent poster does.

      For offices ranging from 5-35 employees, I use old 200-400MHz Dell desktops with ~128MB RAM and 4-8GB hard drives as the IPCop routers.

    2. Re:IPCOP by EvilNight · · Score: 1

      I'll second this. A lot of people are recommending OpenVPN, however setting up a firewall with OpenVPN from scratch isn't exactly a trivial task, even for a netadmin. If you use IPCop you'll be getting the firewall ready to go, with the option for support, and OpenVPN is a drop-in-and-execute mod. I've been using IPCop/OpenVPN for over a year now and loving it. IPCop's web interface is as easy to use as any Linksys router, only far more powerful.

      You can use the built in FreeSWAN VPN features to establish net-to-net VPNs between your offices, and use OpenVPN to allow your clients to access those offices remotely.

      There are several other OpenVPN-capable firewall distros out there... m0n0wall comes to mind as being the most secure, and it'll even run on appliances without requiring a full PC or a hard disk. Thing is, a lot of them don't offer much in the way of logging capability - IPCop does. That's the main reason I ended up settling on it over the other firewall distros.

      --
      Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
  5. PPTP by mnmn · · Score: 1

    Since its a small company, I assume you use a windows2000 or 2003 domain. Use an OpenBSD box that redirects PPTP connections to the windows server.

    Sure there are superior systems but they dont necessarily 'fit' into the small business wintel setup. If youre running an all Linux network, you wouldnt be asking this question and you sure as hell wouldnt look around for commercial offerings.

    If your users are OK with typing in an extra password, use OpenBSD's own SSH or ipsec based VPN, and L2TP on the client windows side.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:PPTP by Nova1313 · · Score: 1

      you might try a nortel contivity vpn box. We have had good experiences with them where I work. You can run a client then to connect to it or if you opt for the SSL model then you can just hand out the webaddress and a java based client will run. It's fairly easy to setup. Support seems great (but I work directly with the companies nortel rep) We're just starting to roll them out company wide two 100 seat boxes. We've had beta users on the SSL VPN portal for months. The normal client version has been in production for a long time.. But this is only if you are looking for a hardware solution. The SSL card is a bit pricy as it's essentially another PC on a pci card that you put in the boxes.

      --
      There exists some positive integer N that you are the Nth person to read this signature.
    2. Re:PPTP by karlto · · Score: 1

      PPTP works well enough for me too. Certainly fits into the 'cheap' basket, although possibly not 'secure' if you are really into that sort of thing (technically it does have encryption though). Funnily enough, it works best without Windows - just install a cheap Linux box as a gateway at each point! (This would allow you to use any of the above VPNs anyway...)

    3. Re:PPTP by xaoslaad · · Score: 1

      I agree. I have used Contivity boxes and they are very nice indeed.

      They are extremely easy to configure, and with RADIUS support, you can authenticate users off of a Windows Domain, Novell eDirectory, or a Unix system, whatever.

      The SSL card should not be totally necessary, depending on how many users, and the smaller onces are quite affordable.

      I came into a company that had an outsourced VPN solution that was generating some 20 calls a day to their help desk. The extremely sad fact of the matter was that we only had 80 some (very active) remote users. With painful corrective action required for almost every single call, not to mention the client allowed split tunneling, along with a myriad of other problems from a security standpoint, it was time for something new.

      Mere hours of work down the road, and one of their medium size boxes as a main and a smaller one for backup, we were down to maybe 1 call a week, usually related to a VPN users internet service being down, rather than any fault of the client/server. I had the dis-luxury of getting it working with the Novell Clients/Servers in the organization as well, and with some changes to default Novell Client behaviour it worked quite nicely. We also used FreeRADIUS on Linux with the rm_ldap module to authenticate directly to the eDirectory environment.

      Simple. Secure. Effortless. And the reduction of calls probably saved lots of money in terms of how much more the techs who were simultaneously filling in as the helpd desk were able to advance the environment, rather than just maintain it, so I am quite sure it was worth it.

  6. Cisco VPN 3000 by anderiv · · Score: 5, Informative

    At work (~90 employees...I guess that would qualify as medium-sized??) we use a Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator. It's been rock-solid for us for two years now, and I'd highly recommend it. If you want to go the VPN-client route, cisco has official clients for Mac, Windows and Linux, but the box is also compatible with the PPTP vpn clients that come with most modern operating systems and it's also fully IPsec compatible. So...for example, if you wanted to, you could set up a linux gateway at home that would connect to your work VPN and establish a LANLAN VPN link.

    If this proves to be too expensive, you ought to look ag OpenVPN. It's quite stable at this point, and they have clients for Windows, Mac and Linux as well. You'll have to have some amount of knowledge of linux networking/firewalling to get it set up right, but there's plenty of documentation out there to guide you.

    1. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by _RiZ_ · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Finally someone with some good advice. I would forget about anything which is considered consumer products. We use a whole host of Cisco 3000 series VPN devices for all sizes of small and large branch offices. We use from the 3002 to the 3030. I have to say, they are ultra reliable, very secure, very well supported by Cisco and the associated community of Cisco users, and has clients for major OS's. Its a win win situation if you ask me. You do have to shell out a little more than the guy who was recommending you commit fraud by buying a lame Linksys device and a flat screen for yourself, but in the end you will get a rock solid, well supported, and very configurable device.

    2. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Cisco VPN client isn't very friendly though. It resets your DNS servers and default route, which is, at least for me, rarely desirable. The Linux client is i386-only (comes with "source" plus an i386 library), and the Mac client, while it works at the moment, has gone for long periods of time without supporting say, dual processor machines (read all high-end macs). Overall it's not a great client solution if you have any variety in your client workstations or their networks.

      Generic IPSec is not terribly hard to setup, supports nat traversal, has good support in all modern OSes, and can be run either on a dedicated hardware appliance or a cheap old *NIX box. It *does* require client-side configuration, but it also provides a lot more options in how the client is configured.

    3. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by _RiZ_ · · Score: 1

      I am not sure what you mean by it not being very friendly. You can easily package up your specific vpn profile into an installation executable or just hand out profiles to those who already have it installed. The most recent version of the client for windows is 4.8, 4.9 for Mac OSX, 4.8 for Linux, and 4.6 for Solaris. Our client does split tunneling so it does not change your default route nor does it change the dns settings which are set either manually, by dhcp, or by group policy. You should really check your information before handing out incorrect information.

    4. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by dago · · Score: 1

      Er, no the client is also 64 bits - I am using it on my amd64 (gentoo) without any problems. Same for the solaris client, it's 32 & 64 bits.

      --
      #include "coucou.h"
    5. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by dwater · · Score: 1

      I recommend against Cisco's VPN since they restrict access to local networks, which can be fatal - dhcp, and other 'login' (eg many airports/cafes) mechanisms require access to the local networks. My company moved from a Cisco based system to OpenVPN in order to avoid such issues.

      --
      Max.
    6. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DHCP? login? Doesn't that happen well BEFORE you fire up your VPN client?

      Maybe many companies feel you shouldn't have access to the local network when you are VPNd in to their infrastructure because of the goatse sized security hole it leaves open, especially at public access points, like airports/cafes.

    7. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by Fhqwhgadss · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I would have to respectfully disagree. I run a VPN3030 installation and it has provided numerous headaches when coupled with the Cisco VPN Client for both Windows and OSX. The clients frequently got disconnected from the concentrator until we disabled IKE keepalives and changed the rekeying interval to 8 hours. The WEBVPN feature absolutely sucks, having caused several crashes and rendering several web pages badly. The client for OSX on Intel fails miserably; we're pushing out Cisco's new client for that, but I'm skeptical.

      Worst of all, Cisco's TAC is horrid for this product. One support engineer actually told us to disable the firewall on SP2 in order to allow the client to connect, rather than opening the specific ports that are necessary for the connection (hello, we're trying to secure our internal applications, not expose them to any shmuck who decides to 'own' an unprotected XP machine). Another referred to our Heimdal kerberos server as "third party" since he had never heard of a kerberos server outside of Active Directory.

      The only case where we haven't had problems is for the few users that we have set up PIX boxes for at their homes. Not exactly an ideal setup for mobile users.

      Cisco has assured us that the ASA does not suck as bad. We'll see when the evaluation unit gets in.

      --
      How does a 7-person democracy cut a pie? Into 4 pieces.
    8. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by Fhqwhgadss · · Score: 1

      I'm not quite sure what you mean by restringting access to local networks. You still need to at least have an IP address before you can set up a tunnel. Also, we have set up split tunnelling on our setup and it works fine. Only traffic destined to our internal network gets sent over the VPN. The problem that we have had with airports is when they are set up in a private IP space that coincides with our private IP space. Too bad it happens to be that way with our local airport.

      --
      How does a 7-person democracy cut a pie? Into 4 pieces.
    9. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by dwater · · Score: 1

      ok, for example, at a place I used to live at, they would make you visit a web page and make you log in. That would open a window in which a javascript script would send a 'heart beat' every so often to keep the connection open.

      No problem at all accessing the internet with just that.

      However, when I use Cisco's VPN client, it'll connect/etc no problem, but when the javascript attempts to send a heart beat, it fails because Cisco's VPN client diverts all traffic over the VPN.

      I've seen other places that use a similar method of logging on.

      You can configure Cisco's client to allow access to various local networks, but if you move about a lot, it's a cat and mouse game.

      If you connect to a service that uses a DHCP server, as many do, then your IP address needs to be renewed every so often. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet the Cisco VPN client doesn't do anything special to renew the address or to allow it to be renewed, meaning it could be assigned to someone else.

      Of course, access to the local network is a pain when you want to print and stuff like that too.

      Equally of course, the fact that you can't do this sort of thing gives security too, and allowing local network access brings a level of insecurity.

      --
      Max.
    10. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by Fhqwhgadss · · Score: 1

      The VPN 3000 can be configured to leave default routing alone on the client side and only send specific traffic through the VPN. This way you don't need to guess the local network information, and don't load your company internet connection with traffic that does not need to be secured. It's not exactly trivial, but it is documented at http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/471/vpn35-split.h tml . I wouldn't be completely surprised if the Cisco client still broke something, but we have a few hundred users and haven't seen this particular problem outside of the private IP space overlap issue.

      --
      How does a 7-person democracy cut a pie? Into 4 pieces.
    11. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by anderiv · · Score: 1

      They only restrict access to local network if they're *configured* to do so. In our setup, we allow clients' simultaneous access to both their local networks and the remote network.

    12. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by anderiv · · Score: 1

      Ditto - this is called "split tunnelling". We actually found it quite easy to get set up.

    13. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by anderiv · · Score: 1

      I'm going to reply to myself here to try and dispell some of the misinformation that people are posting about the Cisco 3000 series VPN solutions. Several people have mentioned that the vpn restricts access to local networks, that it resets the DNS settings and changes the default gateway. Yes - it *can* do that, but it has to be specifically configured to do so. In our setup, we allow full access to both the local and remote networks simultaneously. After administering our VPN box for two years, I am still amazed by the sheer configurability of the thing. Yes, it'll take some hard work to get it set up right, especially if you're not familiar with routing and VPN technologies. In the end, though, you'll have a rock-solid, fast, reliable VPN solution.

    14. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by DarkLox · · Score: 0

      It doesnt necessarily. On the concentrator itself, you can setup split-tunneling, in which case you can set what ip subnets you want to be routed over the vpn, and what you want routed on your own connection.

      Here at my company (Cisco VPN Concentrator 3005) we have our a.b.c.* stuff routed over our vpn, while your internet traffic goes over your own connection...no need to kill the vpn pipe with your web browsing.

      The other thing with the cisco client, is that it adds itself as a virtual NIC. ..so basically, it will give you new dns servers, but only for that interface...so your own DNS servers that you set, will still work.

      Any questions about these devices, feel free to ask...we have 3 of them here, and I been playing with them for a while.

      --
      Momma told me that sigs are for the devil
    15. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by dwater · · Score: 1

      Ah, ok. I guess that's ok then, if you have control over the server too (which, presumably, the poster would).

      --
      Max.
    16. Re:Cisco VPN 3000 by ostiguy · · Score: 1

      what cisco client were you running? it took cisco a long time to really figure out how to deal with xp sp2 firewall enabled. Some of the early 4.0x clients would work, but tcp tunnelling would be broken, etc. Cisco does some wonky stuff with using high numbered ports for messaging between the various parts of the vpn client, and enabling exceptions for them with sp2's firewall never really seemed to work.

      I liked the 3030 a lot. We told the Mac OS 9 users to pound sand, but we did have some people using the cisco client on their own os X machines.

  7. DIY VPN by strredwolf · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've set up a PPTP VPN using a Ubuntu 5.10 server and PoPToP. All you need is to port forward the PPTP port to the set-up server.

    Windows has the client native to the system. Linux can compile PPP and the PPTP client, and w/kernel 2.6.15+ you don't need to patch the kernel to get MPPE encrypton/compression. Solaris, alas, needs some patching. I googled this:

    http://mcarpenter.free.fr/Dev/pptp.php

    All works fairly well.

    --

    --
    # Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
    $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
    1. Re:DIY VPN by edwdig · · Score: 1

      PPTP sucks if you're behind a NAT. You tend to get issues where you can connect fine once, but then you can't connect again properly for hours. I think what happens is the NAT can't always tell when the PPTP connection ends and keeps the ports tied up on the router, preventing another connection from succeeding. I haven't tried very hard to find out what the exact problem is though, as it's not very obvious.

    2. Re:DIY VPN by strredwolf · · Score: 1

      Depends on the NAT router. Dlink's I've found are bad, while Linksys routers are fairly good.

      --

      --
      # Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
      $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
  8. Poptop by PAPPP · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you want good integration with windows (read: PPTP), and want to keep it on a nice cheap *nix box, try Poptop . Runs on most any *nix, entirely compatible with the builtin PPTP support in recent versions of windows. I've been running it for my own purposes (admittedly not on a "small business" scale, only one or two users) for years on a modest linux box and it hasnt given me any trouble connecting from WinXP or linux clients.

    1. Re:Poptop by Firehawke · · Score: 1

      Just one problem with this.. it seems like using it with the Microsoft client will pretty much restrict you to MS-CHAP v2, which is horrendously broken (as described on the poptop website: wildly insecure. It looks more easily broken than WEP, and WEP is pretty damn easy (apples and oranges, but still..)

      OpenVPN looks to be about the only really good choice at the free level. If I'm wrong, I'd love to know about it, though.

  9. Windows Server 2003? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I'm not sure if you are using Windows Server 2003 on site, but if you have a license to it then Microsoft already has a VPN solution. See this how-to:
    http://blog.hishamrana.com/2006/04/07/how-to-windo ws-2003-vpn-server/

  10. OpenVPN by peacefinder · · Score: 4, Informative

    Go to openvpn.net. It's very straightforward to get a multiuser openvpn server up, using pre-shared keys or certificates. It's free, it's simple, it's multiplatform, and it's sufficiently secure for business purposes.

    (However, if by "compatible with common network gear" you mean you need to host a VPN endpoint on a Cisco box, then OpenVPN probably won't work. If you can pass the connection through a firewall to a DMZ server, though, it should work fine.)

    If you want a completely free solution, use OpenVPN hosted on an OpenBSD (or other free OS) firewall.

    --
    With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
  11. Other Issues: Hamachi setup time. Insecurity. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Informative

    Other issues:

    Hamachi setup: The setup time for Hamachi is exactly what they say: A few minutes. The interface is a bit quirky, and the documentaton is limited.

    Anyone using Hamachi may want to run it as a service; see this explanation from Cyberonica.

    Insecurity: Hamachi uses a very sensible technique for getting around firewalls and NAT. So does Skype VOIP. Of course, that means firewalls and NAT are not really protecting us.

    In no way am I saying that Hamachi itself is insecure. I don't think that. They say all traffic is encrypted, and normally none passes through their servers. I am only saying that these techniques show the insecurity of our present protections.

    ZoneAlarm Security Suite: We use ZoneAlarm Security Suite, a software firewall that notifies users every time something happens that might be an indication of a security breach.

    If the users don't cooperate, and don't call us every time they see a notification, there is no security. ZoneAlarm's notifications are written in pure Geek, an unusual language which is used not to communicate but to pretend to communicate, while actually trying to avoid providing any useful information. Geek is a job security language, not a language for communication.

    The real answer, of course, is to have a secure operating system, not one in which there is a lot of profit to be made selling the next version by criticizing the present version. We need an OS that is designed to be secure, not one that is allowed to be sloppy so that it is insecure.

    Router VPN -- Netgear: We have had an enormous amount of trouble with Netgear router VPNs. We've had a lot of trouble with Netgear technical support. The Netgear products don't seem finished. Once they are working, our experience is that they stay working, with some quirks.

    (Interestingly, Netgear is the worst company for avoiding sending rebates. We almost always have to go to the management of the store from which we bought Netgear equipment and have them get our rebates for us.)

  12. OpenVPN rawks the Casbah by Xenophon+Fenderson, · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I really like OpenVPN. It works as a client or a server on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and other operating systems, and it is pretty easy to install, configure, and run. I just followed the how-to. It operates over UDP or TCP, you can tunnel it through HTTP or SOCKS proxies, and the server can use any cipher or hash available in the OpenSSL library. PPTP is ubiquitous, but it has serious flaws. IPSEC is supposed to be standard, but interoperability is a configuration nightmare (especially if you try to do something complex, like use X.509 certificates, or something non-standard, like authenticate users against RADIUS). Firewall/NAT traversal can present serious challenges in some cases as well, as some firewalls can't handle non-TCP/UDP protocols. CIPE requires special support in the operating system kernel and only works on Linux and Windows, and tunneling TCP over TCP (when running PPP over SSH) is a really bad idea.

    I'm using OpenVPN to tie routers running OpenWRT (Linux), routers running FreeBSD, and workstations/laptops running Windows, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X together. It works flawlessly.

    --
    I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
    1. Re:OpenVPN rawks the Casbah by bryanc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      OpenVPN is great. We've tried the PPTP thing, but there is a tendancy for users to dink with settings that end up with unwanted traffic on our network (e.g. default route goes through the vpn).

      OpenVPN puts all of this in a config file even on windows. Distribute the config and installation package and you're done. Need more security? Distribute the key files as well.

    2. Re:OpenVPN rawks the Casbah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tunneling TCP over TCP (when running PPP over SSH) is a really bad idea

      VPN over TCP is even worse idea. That's because the state of VPN tunnels is altered by a traffic that is unauthenticated - TCP ACKs, RSTs, etc. That is also the primary reason why SSL VPNs should not be ever used in any serious production deployment .. they are too fragile.

    3. Re:OpenVPN rawks the Casbah by BeagleBoi · · Score: 2, Informative

      You do realise that that Schneier article about flaws in Microsoft's PPTP is eight years old, right?

      Microsoft released a patch/upgrade (DUN 1.3) for Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT 3.51 which Schneier agreed fixed most of the problems.

    4. Re:OpenVPN rawks the Casbah by tweek · · Score: 1

      Odd. In our case we WANT the default user route to be forced through the VPN. That way we control exactly what they do WHILE on the VPN. I loved that about the Cisco VPN Client. Captive VPN. But oddly enough, the Netscreen client doesn't really work the same way even though SafeNet makes both of them.

      --
      "Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
    5. Re:OpenVPN rawks the Casbah by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      I would avoid safenet stuff like the plague...
      Looking at their own safenet branded vpns -
      The windows client crashes when you send certain ipv6 traffic to it's mac address (it locks up solid, you have to power cycle)
      The linux client requires redhat 9 with it's default (no patches for the local kernel vulns discovered in 2003) kernel and a particular version of sun's jre (which is no longer available from sun's site due to being so old), and even then still doesn't work properly.
      The solaris client only works on Solaris 8/ultrasparc and probably has similar java version requirements to the linux version

      They also claim that the whole steaming pile of crap is ipsec compliant and will work with third party ipsec implemenations, which it's not, and it doesn't respectively.

      Some of their vpn devices when linked together, have been known to forward ARP traffic wether you want it to or not (they were meant to do layer 3 routing only), which can cause absoloute mayhem on the network.

      Finally, their support department is worse than useless, we spent many hours trying to get them to show us how to configure their products to perform as advertised (support ipsec etc) and got nowhere.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    6. Re:OpenVPN rawks the Casbah by Xenophon+Fenderson, · · Score: 1

      Except Schneier says (on the page to which you linked):

      These changes address most of the major security weaknesses of the orginal protocol. However, the revised protocol is still vulnerable to offline password-guessing attacks from hacker tools such as L0phtcrack. At this point we still do not recommend Microsoft PPTP for applications where security is a factor.
      That same page links to the updated paper, which concludes:
      Microsoft has improved PPTP to correct the major security weaknesses described in [SM98]. However, the fundamental weakness of the authentication and encryption protocol is that it is only as secure as the password chosen by the user.
      So, new version or no, I still think PPTP is unsuitable for general use. Offline password analysis is a serious flaw, especially given the poor quality of most users' passwords plus modern tools like rainbow tables.
      --
      I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
  13. My Experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Maybe I'm just an idiot, but OpenVPN was difficult to sort out in the beginning. There really needs to be a quick setup guide that'll get you running in under 10 minutes. If not that, then maybe a GUI solution that's better than what currently is in place, especially for Windows installations. If this was done, I can imagine that OpenVPN would gain much more wide acceptance.

    I've heard people have much success with Linksys VPN routers. But Cisco VPNs will always be a sure bet.

    1. Re:My Experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OpenVPN is quite easy to setup.

      There's a few easy examples on their site.

      I had it up and running in about 15 minutes (using preshared keys), it did take longer to get it fully functional but for a simple VPN I'd say it was quite easy.

      I guess it just depends on technical/networking experience. Takes me over 3 hours to change the oil in my car! :)

    2. Re:My Experience by Alioth · · Score: 1

      I don't know when you tried it, but when I did (recently) there was a 'quick setup guide' and it took me less than 10 minutes to set up with a simple pre-shared key.

    3. Re:My Experience by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      I tried this about 2 years ago. 10 minutes was just about the compile time. I finaly got it working after about two weeks and thought about using another solution if it ever went down. I don't support that site anymore and have no clue what they are using now. Things must have realy changed in the last year or so.

    4. Re:My Experience by Alioth · · Score: 1

      I guess they must have; not only did I set it up within 10 minutes, I instructed someone how to set it up who had never set up a VPN before in around 10 minutes. The example that comes with OpenVPN is just about ready to go for a simple preshared key setup - just substitute your own information where necessary.

    5. Re:My Experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would imagine that if you're trying to run an OpenVPN server on Windows that it probably is more difficult to set up than what you're used to. Personally, I've had a lot of success running OpenVPN on OpenBSD both at work and at home. If you want to go the OpenBSD route, here is a good tutorial on how to set up OpenVPN on OpenBSD.

    6. Re:My Experience by youngerpants · · Score: 4, Informative
      I have very recently (last week) set up an OpenVPN service for one of my clients on an Ubuntu box.



      http://www.itsatechworld.com/2006/01/29/how-to-con figure-openvpn/

      That site has a very easy to understand howto with plenty of client and server examples. After a day of trawling through the OpenVPN documents, this howto was a breath of fresh air.

    7. Re:My Experience by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      I'm goign to have to revisit this then. Sometimes i forget that in open source the development cycle is multiple times faster then regular software. It is good to here it is alot better.

  14. OpenVPN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You could look at OpenVPN

  15. Astaro by dracocat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have definately become a fan of Astaro. It is not free, but in my opinion very reasonable, and worth the cost in time savings. It works with the built-in windows client, and the thing pretty much installs and sets itself up. They have a free 30-day full featured demo, and the entire thing is free for "home use".

    Did I mention I have become a huge fan? or was it already obvious?

  16. not enough info by dwater · · Score: 1

    you don't tell us enough about your proposed VPN topology...

    still, OpenVPN can do it all, so I vote for that.

    --
    Max.
  17. *shrug* by Theatetus · · Score: 2, Informative

    Small company? Then either openswan or PPTP on a commodity server. No need to take sledgehammers to a cockroach.

    --
    All's true that is mistrusted
    1. Re:*shrug* by Akardam · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but taking a sledgehammer to a cockroach makes such a nice satisfying *splat* ...

  18. I usually don't cry dupe, but.... by numbski · · Score: 1

    DUPE.

    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182998&cid=151 23283

    I know, I know, that one said "distributed". Sheesh. My answer remains the same. OpenVPN, like 90% of the answers here. :P

    I'm not being cynical. I'm just tired. :D

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

  19. ClarkConnect Linux for PPTP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've been using the built-in PPTP server (Poptop) that comes with ClarkConnect Home and it works like a charm. Very easy to setup and configure via web interface. As long as you don't expect too many high bandwidth connections it should be a good solution.

    http://www.clarkconnect.com/

    Important Note: The Linux kernel does not have support for MPPE encryption, which is what PPTP uses. Most distros will require a kernel patch and recompile to do this, ClarkConnect does all of this for you (I believe Mandrake does as well).

  20. M$oft. by ikejam · · Score: 4, Funny

    MS ISA Server.

    HEY I'm just providing an alternative.

    1. Re:M$oft. by Habahaba · · Score: 1, Insightful
      I agree. MS ISA is easy way to go and small / medium sized company is likely to have Exchange and / or Windows 2003 server anyways.

      Besides, the client is already included with WinXP...

    2. Re:M$oft. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've recently setup ISA, OpenVPN, and PopTop separately. ISA is a cool idea, but felt like extreme overkill if we weren't running all our traffic through the machine (we weren't). OpenVPN was a cool idea, but distributing the certificates was annoying. PopTop was cool and fairly simple to set up at first, but I tweaked something unobvious and haven't made it work again (that was a week ago).

      I'm not really done yet, but my lesson was that no solution was simple, and every solution worked decently with Windows' builtin vpn.

  21. I use a Netscreen25 and Netgear ProSafe FVL328 by Yoweigh116 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm the systems admin (domain admin. donning asbestos suit.) for a small/medium busines in New Orleans. We use one Netscreen25 in our main office downtown. That gives us granular control over individual users' security policies if desired, but I'm in the process of moving them all to a single policy to ease administration. The box can maintain 125 concurent tunnels. It can do quite a bit of other craziness as well, but I haven't worked here long enough to get deep into it. Too much other stuff to do. Not absolutely certain about the cross-platform client, so you can look that up yourself. ;)

    In addition to the individual user VPNs, the Netscreen maintains persistant tunnels to two remote sites. They're equipped with Netgear ProSafe FVL328 routers. Less capable with low(er) throughput, but the branch end has to deal with a whole lot less traffic. The NS downtown maintains security with its lesser peers, too.

  22. OpenVPN behind a NAT? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    We looked at OpenVPN. It looked like a lot of work to get it to function behind a NAT firewall. A google search restricted to the OpenVPN web site brings up many, many questions, and not many answers.

    Anyone have experience?

    1. Re:OpenVPN behind a NAT? by arivanov · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bollocks.

      It works fine behind a NAT in either UDP or TCP mode. Have always worked. I run it for road warrior access for a 3rd year now after switching over from an IPSEC/PPTP solution.

      If you use OpenVPN 2.0+ you can push options and manage everything from the server just like on a commercial VPN product. The only missing bit is the firewall management so you need to get a decent third party firewall.

      A measly 320£ worth Via C3 running OpenVPN can deliver 200+ clients with an aggregate client bandwidth of 50MBit+. The comparable Cisco device is a higher end PIX or a 3000 series concentrator which costs 5 times that.

      In addition to that with OpenVPN you can build a proper VPN infrastructure with failover, dynamic load balancing between tunnels, balancing between links, DDNS targets on either end, QoS to allow VOIP links in that, etc. With most IPSEC based solutions (including Cisco) you cannot get even close to that.

      --
      Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
      http://www.sigsegv.cx/
    2. Re:OpenVPN behind a NAT? by JamesTRexx · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have set up a new firewall at home last weekend using FreeBSD, PF, and OpenVPN. I haven't used PF and OpenVPN before and it took maybe one afternoon to set it all up so it's not that hard. (no, not a simple home version, but one involving crossing a firewall at work, and on my side separate networks for internal, dmz, and wireless) I'd say give it a shot and just build two test machines, especially because you can monitor realtime what PF is doing by using tcpdump on the pflog0 interface.

      --
      home
    3. Re:OpenVPN behind a NAT? by Wudbaer · · Score: 2, Informative

      I can confirm that it works fine with multiple clients behind a NAT firewall (which more often than not totally fucks up commercial IPSec-based VPN clients). I mean - it's basically SSL, so there is no reason why it shouldn't. Setup was a breeze, reliability in my book is very good. OpenVPN is much much better than the Watchguard MuVPN solution I replaced by it (basically a souped-up OpenSWAN with the SafeNet Soft Remote Client). Also clients are available for all mainstream platforms, which is also always a big problem with most commercial solutions.

    4. Re:OpenVPN behind a NAT? by cHALiTO · · Score: 1

      I've been using OpenVPN to connect to my server and nat thru it to a client's network :

      [home] -(openvpn1)-> [my company network server] -(NAT on openvpn2)-> [client's network].

      works perfect, and setup was extra easy on a gentoo server.

      check out the howto, especially the quickstart guide to get an idea of how it works.
      I'm using it alongside Shorewall (in each vpn conf I assign a particular tun device, which I can refer to in the shorewall conf.. this makes traffic rules configuration as trivial as something like "Web/ACCEPT local_net vpn1".

      --
      "Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
    5. Re:OpenVPN behind a NAT? by sgt+scrub · · Score: 1

      I agree. OpenVPN is a very customizable, secure, and inexpensive solution. If you don't know how to set it up with firewalling you can check out The Endian Firewall Distro/Project http://www.efw.it/ It is based on IPCop http://ipcop.org/

      --
      Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  23. Hamachi by marcushnk · · Score: 1

    Hamachi is pretty much what you're looking for.

    Or if you like to stuff around, OpenVPN.

    --
    "Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
  24. Linksys has some good products... by foQ · · Score: 1

    I was just looking for something to do this same thing. I haven't solved the problem yet, but Netgear and Linksys have some inexpensive stuff. I ordered the Linksys RV042 and it should arrive today. I'm anxiously awaiting setting it up and testing it because of the Dual WAN functionality. My second internet connection should arrive on Thursday :)

    http://www.netgear.com/products/business/prod_vpnr outer_wired_security_sb.php
    http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Produ ct_C1&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1117775454480& pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

    1. Re:Linksys has some good products... by Slashcrap · · Score: 1

      I was just looking for something to do this same thing. I haven't solved the problem yet, but Netgear and Linksys have some inexpensive stuff.

      Dude, there is a reason why they're inexpensive. If you stick to exactly the same model with the same firmware version at each site, you might be OK as long as you don't do anything too strenuous with it. Or expect it to work the majority of the time.

      If this is something you're doing at home then fine. If you're proposing to implement a corporate VPN with consumer routers, I suggest you start browsing the following website http://www.monster.com/

      Unfortunately I do this for a living, so my opinion is likely to get drowned out by all the people suggesting OpenVPN and PPTP. Actually, just listen to them - anyone recommending PPTP for a secure multi-site VPN must really know what they're talking about.

      Barby says, "IPSEC is hard!"

  25. More about OpenVPN behind a NAT firewall. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    We tried a Google search that eliminates mailing list messages, which mostly seem to be answered in a very limited way.

    As you can see, there are very few documents that mention NAT firewalls.

    In some ways OpenVPN appears to be a typical Open Source project. Documentation is often more work than writing the program, and most Open Source developers don't want to do the documentation, and don't want anyone else to do it, because of perceived loss of credit.

    1. Re:More about OpenVPN behind a NAT firewall. by dwater · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You might want to try contacting the author to see if he is available for consultation. My company hired him to build our prototype system - his rates are very reasonable, and obviously he is the authority since he wrote it.

      --
      Max.
    2. Re:More about OpenVPN behind a NAT firewall. by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 1

      By the same token, the lack of documentation causes the project to be less useful. However, it seems that many open source developers start their projects with the goal of making money someday through implementation services, and writing a successful open source app that people want to use but not documenting it means that people will pay you to set it up and train their employees. If this is your goal, then it is probably in your best interest not to write good documentation.

      Open source stopped being about sharing with the community when people figured they could make money with it. The developers aren't stopping anyone from writing documentation, there's just no incentive for them to do so themselves.

  26. m0n0wall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I setup an IBM x300 server and m0n0wall as my router and it has worked fantastically. It supports IPSec tunnels, as well as PPTP connections. I have two IPSec tunnels to remote sites which both have PIX routers (501 and 506E), as well as connections from remote PPTP clients which is easy to setup and I have never had any problems. Highly recommended for anyone looking for both a simple and powerful solution.

  27. You might be an idiot... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

    There are currently easy-to-find howtos that take 10-15 minutes to set up a simple VPN, and they are clearly marked on the OpenVPN website. The Windows client, while it doesn't have a GUI, it is a service, which makes it fairly simple to enable/disable with a GUI, or just leave on all the time. Config files can be copied from one client to another, only a couple of lines need be changed -- and it's possible to avoid even that.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  28. Smoothwall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.smoothwall.org./ Free. Pay for corporate support if you want to feel better. Use tons of free clients (ssh sentinel, openvpn).

  29. Use a local ISP who offers that service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Depending on what country you are in, there are bound to be various ready-made solutions with which you do not need to worry about the actual implementation. For example, in Germany there is globalways, a small but fine ISP specialized in providing small to medium companies with out-of-the-box Internet & VPNs. As it is based on OpenVPN, all the positive stuff from the other posts applies. No idea about companies in other countries, but you are sure to find one if you look around a little bit.

  30. For cheap try SSL Explorer by LinuxWeenie · · Score: 1

    You might want to consider the Java based SSL Explorer as a possibility. No client side code is required, just a browser and one hole punched through the firewall to the server.

    LW

  31. Is it just me... by ocbwilg · · Score: 1

    Or is this just a stupid question? Every firewall product I have seen in the past 5 years (I have used NetScreen, Watchguard, Fortinet, Cisco PIX and Cisco ASA units) has IPSec VPN capability built in. IPSec is a standard and is supported in a wide variety of clients available on just about every operating system. Being a standard it is also compatible with other firewall/VPN vendors' implementations of IPSec. Assuming that your small/medium business has a firewall, just use what it has built in. License copies of their client software for your PCs, or use a free/OSS alternative. It's not rocket science.

    My small business (300 users) has a Fortigate 400 used for our Internet connection (a pair of T1 circuits). We run Fortinet's VPN client for about a dozen remote workers. The same device also manages persistent VPNs with about a half-dozen business partner companies. Performance isn't an issue. Before we had the Fortigate we were using NetScreens (now Juniper Networks I believe), and we were still using the NetScreen IPSec clients for remote workers 2 years after we switched to the Fortigate firewall. IPSec is pretty much IPSec, and they all talk to each other.

    The only thing that I would add to what has been said here is that if I were to buy a Cisco device I would go with an ASA instead of a PIX. You usually get more features for the same or less money with an ASA.

  32. IPCop works by Eil · · Score: 1

    I was asked by my boss to evaluate VPN between the red interfaces of two IPCop machines. Talk about simple. I don't know exactly how well it scales, but it can't be horrible. Today, one of my tasks is find out if and how well it works with m0n0wall and in roadwarrior configuration.

  33. Not enough information by C_Kode · · Score: 1

    There isn't enough information provided, but it sounds like a pretty small operation and simplistic setup sounds like what you need.

    A main office with several small satellite offices (or small retail stores) I would suggest SonicWall product. (or NetScreen) Small remote offices can use the small single point VPN TZ series devices that allows a single site-to-site VPN and the main office can use a larger product like the 2040 or the 5060 with support I beleive 50 and 2000 VPN sessions respectively. (with several models in between) There are many products out there that will work. SonicWall's products are very easy to use and arn't that expensive.

    If you are just looking for personal VPNs to the office network, Sonicwall also offers VPN software that you can install on laptops/Desktops. There VPN is IPSec so it will support any IPSec client (Linux, etc) without the need to purchase software. There software is very easy to use. Thats why I brought it up.

    1. Re:Not enough information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sonicwall also has clientless SSL VPN devices that allow for AD integration for authentication. http://www.sonicwall.com/products/sslapp.html

  34. IPCop + OpenVPN by rtos · · Score: 1
    Secure VPN goodness in ten easy steps: IPCOP-OpenVPN HOWTO.

    Free, it works great under both Windows and Linux, and you don't need to be a computer whiz to setup your laptop to connect to it. Good stuff.

    --
    -- null
  35. Home office users, NATs, and multiple users by WuphonsReach · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One of the big issues with VPN technologies is the NAT routers that protect home offices. The corporate office side is easy, just punch the appropriate holes in the firewall and the remote clients can easily connect to the network.

    Where things fall apart is that you have multiple laptop users who are behind their own NAT routers at their homes. You need to use VPN software on the laptops (not on the NAT routers) because you only want their work machines connecting in. That's easy enough, until you run into a situation where you have 2 or 3 users who get together and collaborate frequently behind a single NAT router.

    It seems like PPTP (maybe SSL?) was better suited for situations where you might have multiple users VPN'ing in from the same source IP address (hidden behind a NAT router, such as an ad-hoc meeting in someone's house or multiple users meeting in a coffee shop). All of my readings on IPSec indicated that IPSec can't handle that particular usage style.

    --
    Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
  36. snapgears! by alta · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Cyberguard bought snapgear, but they still sell the same products. These are great little boxes that we used to set up a 7 office network across the state of alabama across whatever networks were cheapest (cable, dsl, T1)

    We had 530s in each of the hub offices and a 575 in the main office. (Still have the 575, have since closed all the branches) I still have the 530s and I refuse to sell them because they are such nice little boxes. I'm going to take one home and make it vpn back to here.

    --
    Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
  37. Re: IPCOP -- I Second That by InitZero · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have used IPCop for many, many months. With
    the OpenVPN addon, it makes a sweet RoadWarrior
    setup. The OpenVPN GUI is even easy enough for
    our executives to use.

    For us and our 30-something employees, it cost
    us nothing to put IPCop online. It ran for a
    year on a P-III/700mHz/256M Dell. We recently
    upgraded the RAM to 768M so we could make better
    use of the Squid cache.

    You can get an IPCop server online with VPN in
    under an hour. As long as you have a computer
    in the spare parts closet, IPCop is far less
    expensive than any other solution.

    Matt

  38. Site to Site + Remote Access by chargrilled · · Score: 1

    We have 2 vpn methods. Our main vpn is a hub and spoke topology where our branch offices all connect into our corporate hq. What we use in this case are cheap off the shelf Netgear routers + either dsl, cable, or T-1 connections to our corporate hq which has 3 T-1 lines bonded. The branch routers are FVS318v3 (the v3 is very important much improved processor + ssl for remote mgmt). Our hq uses a FVX538 which has fail-over and load balancing capabilities. I know some do not like Netgear but we have been using this solution for 5+ years and have had very little down time. Plus the routers are cheap so you can keep a hot spare on hand. Now our other solution for out of office work is SSL Explorer which is an open source ssl vpn. It works pretty good and if you want AD authentication you can purchase the "xtra" add on. Hope this helps!

  39. I have been struggling with this for a month!! by kvsnut · · Score: 1

    I have a very small business with three locations (one is my home). The ISP connection varies some are Comcast some are Verizon residential DSL.

    As I see it I have three problems. 1. The IP address will be dynamic from the ISP's and 2. Most of the PC's are running Win XP home 3. Would prefer a no cost solution

    I would like to be able to remote desktop (ie contral/access) any pc from any location.

    I have successfully installed http://hamachi.cc/ Hamachi to address the dynamic IP issue but am working on the XP Home issue (ie. RD server only in XP Pro). I recently downloaded http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/ UltraVNC but I'm lost after the installation. What do you application do you use to start the desktop sharing.

    Most of the PC's are behind a Linksys router some are behind a Linksys router then linksys wireless router.

    I've played with dyndns.org and no

    I'm not a CCNE but I'm no schlub any help would be appreciated.

  40. MOD PARENT UP by creepynut · · Score: 1

    That is a really, REALLY nice guide.

    For those who say that OpenVPN's guide is straightforward either have years of networking experience behind them, or simply haven't tried to set up OpenVPN with it. (That is, at least on Windows)

  41. racoon ISAKMP daemon by Jizzbug · · Score: 3, Informative

    racoon is a very good Internet Security Association Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP) and Internet Key Exchange (IKE) daemon. It is used to auto-negotiate keys for IPsec sessions.

    At work we have three VPN concentrators built using Linux and racoon. Two are configured as normal tunnel-mode concentrators, using fully-qualified usernames on the endpoints for authentication. One of these is for employees, the other is for customers. We are able to use any commodity VPN endpoint device which supports IKE identifiers (for example, Netgear FVS114).

    We also have a third concentrator which is configured to use Xauth and /etc/passwd for authentication. This concentrator allows the Cisco VPN Client software to connect into the network for Road Warrior style access (also does much better with NAT traversal than tunnel-mode IPsec).

    It's a pretty kick ass setup, actually. In particular, you don't have to have a Linux/BSD box or other PC at every endpoint location, just lil' IPsec-enabled gateways/routers (Netgear FVS114 is the best I've found so far, even other Netgears like FVS318 devices suck or are broken).

    --

    -=/\- Jizzbug -/\=-
  42. Bah Hamachi! by laytoncy · · Score: 1

    How is Hamachi what you're looking for? I could be mistaken but I gave Hamachi a whirl cause it was quick to get up and running and basically it just lets you browse the machine you install hamachi on in the remote network. I'm not sure about this user but for me VPN needs to let me logon to the domain remotely. For example, my client has his company laptop at home and he logs onto the company domain via vpn so as far as he's concerned he's connected to the lan. Can you do this with OpenVPN?

    1. Re:Bah Hamachi! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can use hamachi to establish the secure VPN connection and then use something like freeVNC or tightVNC to log onto the remote machine. Then, with the fullscreen mode, it's as though you are sitting in front of your computer at the office from home. Hamachi is great!

  43. Sonicwall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just get a Sonicwall SSL vpn for like $700 and you're done. Takes all of 30 minutes to unpackage, mount and configure and that's it. You have super granular control as to who can access what, whether it be a published web app or direct access to your shared files, folders and printers. Truly a wonderful solution at a CHEAP cost.

  44. OpenVPN requires you to have access to the router. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Informative

    Note that OpenVPN requires that you have access to the router to open a port.

    Hamachi works when you don't have access to the router. In some cases in which the router in administered by someone who won't give you access, Hamachi can work where OpenVPN won't.

  45. pfSense by Obstin8 · · Score: 1
    Check out http://pfsense.org/. FreeBSD 6.x based, uses pf packet filter, supports multiple VPN protocols, runs on embedded hardware as well.

    Running it now on Soekris Net-4801 device http://soekris.com/. Sweet. Smooth.

  46. small business VPN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    depending on how you define small and what type of access you want to provide; go for the Juniper Networks SSL VPN (the firewalls have been mentioned as well). These devices will allow, depending on which box you have and the license purchased, from 10-5000 concurrent users. You have the option of providing full VPN connectivity to web-based intranet connections to partial intranet access (access to the intranet without providing a node on the network).

  47. You can also look at Sonicwall by bec1948 · · Score: 1

    You don't state how many users you have, whether you're using the VPN for site to site or user access, but: I just read about the Sonicwall SSL-VPN 200. Since its SSL it doesn't need a client installed on your users machines and is much easier to configure than the Cisco. For Windows users, there's even an applet that allows TCP/IP applcications to connect to their servers. I've not tested it, but for $600 bucks it's not to bad a deal and Sonicwall has always made good hardware. If you already have a firewall, this could be a good bet. We're using a low end Cisco PIX - the 510 with the Cisco VPN client. It works too. We generally only have one or two people connecting through the VPN at any one time.

  48. OpenBSD is made for stuff exactly like this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
  49. Mac OS X Server by csoto · · Score: 1

    Has easy-to-use built-in PPTP and L2TP VPN that works with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux clients. It also includes nice goodies like Apache, Samba, Directory Services, Jabber Server, etc.

    Of course, you need a Macintosh to run it. I would suggest a Xserve G5. They're very nice. But any 'ol Power Mac or Dual Core will do...

    --
    There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
  50. MOD parent down as an idiot by macdaddy · · Score: 2, Informative
    The Cisco Pix (now ASA) product line are not even distantly related to any LinkSys on the market. Cisco does not make Linksys products. Linksys makes Linksys products. Yes, I'm well aware that Cisco bought Linksys on 3/21/03 but that does not change the fact that Cisco's and Linksys products are not in any way related, yet. There isn't a single product in either company's arsenal that crossover. I work for a Cisco Partner and I with Pixs every day.

    That said I'd recommend either a Pix 501 or 506 for a SOHO until Cisco finishes their replacement in the ASA product line. If neither of those devices will fit your needs then I'd recommend stepping up to a x800-series Cisco router. All current Cisco ISR routers have builtin hardware encryption from the basic 850 all the way up to the 3845. Gone are the days of the 2600s which required addon modules. Easy VPN(tm) is quite nice as is the basic IPSec offerings. If you need something even better then step up to a low-end ASA. The ASA 5510 is very nice. The 7.x code on the Pix/ASA line is a major improvement (as is the replacement of the PDM with the ASDM).

  51. OpenSSH by darkuncle · · Score: 1

    as of version 4.3 (released a few months ago), OpenSSH can now tunnel _any_ arbitrary traffic (including layer 2 traffic) over SSH. The syntax is about as simple as traditional SSH port forwarding, although the developers note that it may not be suitable for latency-sensitive apps (e.g. VoIP) due to the crypto overhead.

    --
    illum oportet crescere me autem minui
  52. How small? by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Are we talking 5-10 man offices, over a DSL line?

    Get a WRT54G. Run DD-WRT. Use either the PPTP server or OpenVPN.

    Done and done.

    Of course, your WRT54G won't handle more than 10 users or so; you'll want to switch to a dedicated box or router for that. But you can't beat it in terms of cost/avaliability-- you can get this sucker up and running in 5 minutes flat, pick one up from bestbuy for ~$50, and there are no moving parts whatsoever.

    For a very small office, its great. For a series of small offices in a larger company, its okay too. We use this sort of segmented VPN in our offices because of bandwidth reasons; we don't have enough uplink at any given location to really setup a better solution, and we can't financially justify purchasing more than 1 Mbit/s of uplink anywhere.

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
  53. pfSense by rainer_d · · Score: 1
    pfSense, now in late beta, is the solution.
    It's FreeBSD 6.1+OpenBSD's pf + ALQ-Traffic-Shaper+IPSEC+PPTP + CARP + lot's more stuff all wrapped into an easy to understand interface.
    Forget about all the other firewall "GUIs" (or lame attempts at GUIs) you've seen before, especially for the unreadable, ever-changing Linux-firewall engines.
    pfSense has the performance, the feature-set, the reliability and the usability to be a real Checkpoint- and Netscreen-killer.

    One quote from the mailing-list says it all: "I tested all the firewalls and GUIs that are available on freshmeat - and pfSense was the only one that didn't suck".

    --
    Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
  54. Citrix Access Gateway by PFactor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Citrix bought a company called Net6 a couple of years ago. Net6 made an SSL VPN "appliance", which runs a hardened Linux OS. Citrix rebranding it as the "Citrix Access Gateway", or CAG.

    The 1st iteration was not so good because they rushed the rebranding and integration stuff. The 2nd and 3rd iterations were OK.

    The latest revision is quite good. It supports around 2000 concurrent users, has easy to use yet powerful access controls and integrates nicely with Citrix's Presentation Server 4 product.

    The cost is pretty good: the box is $2500 and licenses retail for around $100/concurrent user. If you have 100 users and your highest expected concurrent remote access count is 25, your cost would be $2500 + 25 x 100 = $5,000. If you buy 2 boxes (they have a built-in failover mechanism for redundancy), the cost would be $7500.

    I work for a major healthcare provider and we're replacing Cisco VPN concentrators with the CAG. We bought 4 CAGs and are using Citrix's Advanced Access Control (AAC) product to integrate the CAGs with our internal portals (AAC makes the cost go up pretty high, though). We have around 40,000 users and our max concurrent remote users is currently around 4,000.

    Check it out: http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/product .asp?contentID=15005

    And no, I'm not the CEO of Citrix in disguise. I just believe in their products; we've saved a ton of $$$ using them!

    --
    Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
    1. Re:Citrix Access Gateway by eheller · · Score: 1
      One thought on that CAG product - it's a solid box, but if you're going to go the SSL VPN route, you ought to consider a true SSL VPN, which CAG is not.

      CAG is great for Citrix but that's it - if you've got web apps, like PACS or oven OWA, you'll need another solution just for them. The CAG doesn't even have an HTML rewriter, a basic security requirement for an SSL VPN. SSL VPNs do as good a job front ending Citrix as CAG but can also front-end native terminal services, Web apps, some even do tunneling. Check out things like the AEP Netilla box which does all of this, it's pretty cool.

      Just my two cents!

    2. Re:Citrix Access Gateway by PFactor · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they also dropped their price to 5 bucks under Citrx's price for the CAG so they can compete.

      Looks like a good deal for the 50 user office, though I don't know any more about it than what I found with teh Google.

      --
      Don't believe anything I say. I crash test crack pipes for a living.
  55. VPN by eszjam · · Score: 1

    any one can teach me how to build VPN from the bigining .. please :(( Thx

  56. Can OpenVPN make a connection w/o outside address? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    Does OpenVPN require opening a port in the hardware firewall? Can OpenVPN establish a connection when the firewall does not have an internet address, but is connected to another firewall, over which we don't have control?

    I don't see anything on the OpenVPN web site about this.

    One side of our system is behind a NAT with an Internet address. The other side is at an international airport, and we don't have control over the Internet arrangements there. We can only connect to their firewall.