Book Image

Mastering OpenVPN

By : Eric F Crist
Book Image

Mastering OpenVPN

By: Eric F Crist

Overview of this book

Security on the internet is increasingly vital to both businesses and individuals. Encrypting network traffic using Virtual Private Networks is one method to enhance security. The internet, corporate, and “free internet” networks grow more hostile every day. OpenVPN, the most widely used open source VPN package, allows you to create a secure network across these systems, keeping your private data secure. The main advantage of using OpenVPN is its portability, which allows it to be embedded into several systems. This book is an advanced guide that will help you build secure Virtual Private Networks using OpenVPN. You will begin your journey with an exploration of OpenVPN, while discussing its modes of operation, its clients, its secret keys, and their format types. You will explore PKI: its setting up and working, PAM authentication, and MTU troubleshooting. Next, client-server mode is discussed, the most commonly used deployment model, and you will learn about the two modes of operation using "tun" and "tap" devices. The book then progresses to more advanced concepts, such as deployment scenarios in tun devices which will include integration with back-end authentication, and securing your OpenVPN server using iptables, scripting, plugins, and using OpenVPN on mobile devices and networks. Finally, you will discover the strengths and weaknesses of the current OpenVPN implementation, understand the future directions of OpenVPN, and delve into the troubleshooting techniques for OpenVPN. By the end of the book, you will be able to build secure private networks across the internet and hostile networks with confidence.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Mastering OpenVPN
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 10. Future Directions

The history of OpenVPN has been bumpy—ranging from a fledgling starter, to widely used, to nearly dead, and back again. The gap in development from 2006 to roughly 2009 was significant, but the hard work and dedication of developers such as David Sommerseth (dazo), Gert Doering (cron2), Steffan Karger, and Samuli Seppänen has given the project a successful recent past and a bright future.

OpenVPN is available on nearly every platform available. Snom (an IP phone manufacturer), for example, includes a version of their VOIP phone firmware with an OpenVPN client included. pfSense, OpenWRT, and other WAP/firewall operating systems include OpenVPN and (usually) a web interface to manage deployment.

In recent years, OpenVPN has been available on many mobile phones as well. The first was available for Android, OpenVPN for Android by Arne Schwabe. This utilized a ported tun driver and did not support tap mode (bridged) VPNs.

The OpenVPN application for iOS (Apple) didn...