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Paranoid Penguin - Linux VPNs with OpenVPN, Part V

Issue 194

From Issue #194
June 2010

Aug 01, 2010  By Mick Bauer
 in
Tips for success in using OpenVPN for secure remote access.
Conclusion

This article and my previous four columns covered Virtual Private Network principles and architectures; described a few VPN technologies available for Linux and how SSL/TLS solutions differ from IPsec; covered OpenVPN server configuration, including how to generate and manage digital certificates; and described client configuration and usage; all for a simple remote-access usage scenario.

With all of that plus the practical use details I covered this month, you should be well on your way to a secure remote-access VPN solution using OpenVPN. If you decide to use OpenVPN instead or additionally to build network-to-network VPNs or to do a “bridging” OpenVPN solution, the OpenVPN man page, HOWTO and FAQ should make more sense to you now than they would have before reading these articles—all of which means, you no longer have any excuse to surf the Web through insecure wireless hot spots without protection!

Resources

Official OpenVPN Home Page: www.openvpn.net

OpenVPN FAQ: openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/faq.html

OpenVPN HOWTO: www.openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/howto.html

Ubuntu Community OpenVPN Page: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenVPN

The update-resolv-conf Script by Thomas Hood and Chris Hanson: www.subvs.co.uk/openvpn_resolvconf

Mick Bauer (darth.elmo@wiremonkeys.org) is Network Security Architect for one of the US's largest banks. He is the author of the O'Reilly book Linux Server Security, 2nd edition (formerly called Building Secure Servers With Linux), an occasional presenter at information security conferences and composer of the “Network Engineering Polka”.

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