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

Using the OpenVPN Connect app for iOS


For this example, I installed OpenVPN Connect app from Apple's App store on an Apple iPad running iOS 8.1.2, as well as on an iPhone running iOS 8.

Note

This version of OpenVPN is not open source. A special agreement with Apple was required to gain insight into the Apple iOS networking stack, in order to be able to port OpenVPN to iOS. This negates the need for a jail-broken device.

Similar to the Android version, the OpenVPN Connect app can be best used with profiles that use [inline] certificate and key pairs. Therefore, we again make use of the OpenVPN configuration profile created in the first example of this chapter.

On the VPN server side, we launch OpenVPN using the standard ipv6-udp-server.conf configuration file.

Before we can use the OpenVPN profile on iOS, we must transfer it to the device. This can be done via e-mail, or using iTunes. It is a good idea to ensure you're using a secure transfer method. The iTunes connection is secure, but TLS-encrypted...