Chapter 19. Virtual Private Networks

VPNs are becoming increasingly important as companies move away from using private WANs for intra-business communication or dial-up modem pools for remote access. More "road warriors" needing to access data on the corporate LAN from the road has driven a need for better approaches to security for wireless networking, the need to secure Voice-over IP connections between offices and homes, and ubiquitous security access from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. All of these demands and many others are driving the need for robust and sustainable VPNs between multiple locations and roving users. Depending on the VPN technology being used, this can be a simple project (openvpn, cipe, and so on) or an absolute nightmare (IPSEC!). In this chapter we will cover diagnostic procedures on some of the most common issues with two of the most popular VPNs, IPSEC, and PPTP.