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

Summary


In this chapter we have learned how to check our OpenVPN and networking setup step-by-step using standard Linux tools and evaluating their output. With tools like ifconfig, ping, traceroute, and mtr, we could analyze the flow of datagrams between the VPN servers and the connected networks. Programs like tcpdump, IPTraf, ntop, and Munin will give us detailed information about the current traffic or statistical breakdowns of it. The first place to look for troubleshooting should always be the log file of OpenVPN itself—especially at a higher level of verbosity.