The VPN Menu¶
A VPN allows two geographically separated local networks to directly connect to each other over potentially unsafe networks such as the Internet. All the network traffic through the VPN connection is securely transmitted inside an encrypted tunnel, hidden from prying eyes. Such a configuration is called a Gateway-to-Gateway VPN, or Gw2Gw VPN for short. Similarly, a single remote computer somewhere on the Internet can use a VPN tunnel to connect to a local trusted LAN. The remote computer, sometimes called a Road Warrior, appears to be directly connected to the local network while the VPN tunnel is active.
The Connect Switchboard supports the creation of VPNs based either on the IPsec or L2TP protocols, which is supported by most operating systems and network equipment, or on the OpenVPN service.
A user friendly OpenVPN client for Microsoft Windows and MacOS X, can be downloaded from the Endian Network.
The Connect Switchboard can be set up either as an OpenVPN server or as a client, and even play both roles at the same time, in order to create a network of OpenVPN-connected appliances. The menu items available in the sub-menu are the following:
OpenVPN server–set up the OpenVPN server so that clients (both roadwarriors and other Connect Switchboards in a Gateway-to-Gateway setup) can connect to one of the local zones
OpenVPN client (Gw2Gw)–set up the client-side of an OpenVPN connection Gateway-to-Gateway setup between two or more Connect Switchboards
IPsec–set up IPsec-based VPN tunnels
Authentication–manage authentication servers for VPN users
L2TP–Set up an encrypted tunnel using L2TP or XAuth or both
Certificates–manage certificate used with VPN connections