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

Installing OpenVPN on Debian


Probably the easiest distribution on which to install OpenVPN is Debian. Just type apt-get install openvpn, answer two questions, and OpenVPN is installed and ready to be used.

The Debian package management system is capable of solving all issues that might occur during the installation. If your system is configured correctly, the automatic installation covers these steps:

  1. 1. The installation helper apt-get will find the software on the installation servers.

  2. 2. The helper will then download the chosen package and unpack it to your local system.

  3. 3. An interactive configuration script is executed, which configures your system and the newly installed software for later usage with the parameters you enter.

The following code extract is the standard output of apt-get install openvpn on a Debian system. This output may vary depending on your previous software selection, and in many cases the LZO compression library will have to be installed. On some systems apt will install...