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

Using TinyCA2 to Manage Certificates


TinyCA2 is a very handy tool to accomplish certificate management. It provides extended functions and the possibility to influence the behavior of OpenSSL itself. TinyCA2 is available for OpenSuSE on online repositories; other distributions must look on http://tinyca.sm-zone.net/ for appropriate packages or source code. On OpenSuSE, TinyCA2 can easily be installed using YaST. I also read about a MAC port on http://tinyca2.darwinports.com/, so there should be a version for almost every UNIX/Linux system.

TinyCA2 can be used to create a CA and to import and export CAs, certificates, keys, and revocation lists. It can manage several CAs and will offer the choice of which CA to load on startup, if several CAs are configured.

Importing Our CA

After installation, start TinyCA2 from SuSE's main menu. Select Utilities | Security | tool to manage a Certificate Authority (TinyCA2). TinyCA2 is started and displays an empty window. The icons in the tool bar offer...