Weekend Project Setting Up a VPN on Your Linux Router or Gateway

Wednesday, 05 May 2010 00:00

Written by linux.com

Our recent Linux.com survey results told us that you want more tutorials on the site, so today we are introducing a new series called "Weekend Projects." These tutorials will run on Fridays and will be longer than our regular original tutorials, since their purpose is to provide Linux users with a fun project to embark upon over the weekend. Please share with your friends and colleagues and have fun with it! And, as always, let us know if it's useful and what other topics you would like to see in this series.

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are no longer the domain of highly-sensitive remote office workers. As the workforce becomes more mobile and the number of connected devices in our homes rises, we're increasingly finding the need to connect to our home network from the hotel room, Internet cafe, or simply from across town. Linux offers an array of free VPN alternatives, which you can set up and test in just a few hours' time. If you are running a Linux-based router as the gateway between your LAN and the Internet, the task becomes even simpler.

Getting Up To Speed

VPNs come in two basic flavors (barring proprietary, single-vendor offerings, of course): those that use the IPSec protocol, and those that use Transport Layer Security (TLS) or its predecessor SSL to create a tunnel between the client computer and the VPN server. IPSec is an official IETF specification that works as a secure Internet Layer replacement to the IP protocol. While powerful and robust, it suffers from the practical problem of many ISPs and public access points blocking IPSec in order to sell access to it as a business service. TLS/SSL-based VPNs operate two layers up in the protocol stack, at the application layer, and encrypt traffic over normal TCP and UDP channels. Virtually all ISPs and public access points permit TLS/SSL traffic because it is vital to Web commerce sites.

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