Book Image

OpenVPN: Building and Integrating Virtual Private Networks

Book Image

OpenVPN: Building and Integrating Virtual Private Networks

Overview of this book

OpenVPN is a powerful, open source SSL VPN application. It can secure site-to-site connections, WiFi and enterprise-scale remote connections. While being a full-featured VPN solution, OpenVPN is easy to use and does not suffer from the complexity that characterizes other IPSec VPN implementations. It uses the secure and stable TLS/SSL mechanisms for authentication and encryption. This book is an easy introduction to this popular VPN application. After introducing the basics of security and VPN, the book moves on to cover using OpenVPN, from installing it on various platforms, through configuring basic tunnels, to more advanced features, such as using the application with firewalls, routers, proxy servers, and OpenVPN scripting. While providing only necessary theoretical background, the book takes a practical approach, presenting plenty of examples.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
OpenVPN
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
Index

Ethernet Bridging with OpenVPN


On Linux, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 we can use our VPN tunnels as one big logical Ethernet network. By connecting (bridging) a virtual OpenVPN interface and a real Ethernet interface, we connect (bridge) the networks behind these interfaces and provide a virtual Ethernet between the hosts in the real networks, including exchange of Ethernet Frames. This feature can be useful for Windows users that will need to exchange broadcast packages through the tunnel, e.g. for network browsing, LAN parties, and more.

Setting up OpenVPN for bridging mode is simple and the same for all operating systems: We only have to make sure our OpenVPN setup is working and that we are using TAP devices. I recommend the use of TLS-server setup with clients that are automatically assigned addresses and configurations.

On Linux, you will need to install the bridge-utils package and follow the information on the website http://openvpn.net/bridge.html. Windows users can simply use the...