Book Image

Openswan: Building and Integrating Virtual Private Networks

By : Ken Bantoft, Paul Wouters
Book Image

Openswan: Building and Integrating Virtual Private Networks

By: Ken Bantoft, Paul Wouters

Overview of this book

<p>With the widespread use of wireless and the integration of VPN capabilities in most modern laptops, PDA's and mobile phones, there is a growing desire for encrypting more and more communications to prevent eavesdropping. Can you trust the coffee shop's wireless network? Is your neighbor watching your wireless? Or are your competitors perhaps engaged in industrial espionage? Do you need to send information back to your office while on the road or on board a ship? Or do you just want to securely access your MP3's at home? IPsec is the industry standard for encrypted communication, and Openswan is the de-facto implementation of IPsec for Linux.</p> <p>Whether you are just connecting your home DSL connection with your laptop when you're on the road to access your files at home, or you are building an industry size, military strength VPN infrastructure for a medium to very large organization, this book will assist you in setting up Openswan to suit those needs.</p> <p>The topics discussed range from designing, to building, to configuring Openswan as the VPN gateway to deploy IPsec using Openswan. It not only for Linux clients, but also the more commonly used Operating Systems such as Microsoft Windows and MacOSX. Furthermore it discusses common interoperability examples for third party vendors, such as Cisco, Checkpoint, Netscreen and other common IPsec vendors.</p> <p>The authors bring you first hand information, as they are the official developers of the Openswan code. They have included the latest developments and upcoming issues. With experience in answering questions on a daily basis on the mailing lists since the creation of Openswan, the authors are by far the most experienced in a wide range of successful and not so successful uses of Openswan by people worldwide.</p>
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Building and Integrating Virtual Private Networks with Openswan
Credits
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewers
Preface

Summary


It might not come as a surprise that people involved with cryptography often also have strong political views on freedom, privacy, and civil rights. It is easy, even tempting, to wander from the realm of technology into the realm of politics. These issues are the cause for the formation of groups such as The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), European Digital Rights (EDRI), the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), and IPJustice, as well as more informal groups such as the free software and open source movements, the Cypherpunks, Groklaw, Politech, 2600 Magazine, the CCC, Hacktic/HfH, and many more.

All these groups have reached the same conclusion. Cryptography is a strong tool that can be used and abused by governments, criminals, businesses, and individuals. Cryptography has become an essential part of daily life, and should not be limited to the military. It is essential to freedom, something the FreeS/WAN Project believed strongly in. They have created the foundation for widespread use of IPsec to ensure privacy for many, ranging from NATO to Greenpeace. Openswan continues to provide those means for everyone. And the remainder of this book will help you accomplish the same.

Esther Dyson, member of the President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption and board member of the EFF, formulated these believes in a powerful concise matter:

Encryption...is a powerful defensive weapon for free people. It offers a technical guarantee of privacy, regardless of who is running the government...It's hard to think of a more powerful, less dangerous tool for liberty.