[lug] VPNs

[Michael J. Pedersen]

On Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 01:41:08PM -0800, Glenn Ashton wrote:
> We were wondering amongst ourselves if there was a "Linux" way of allowing
> Windows 2000 and NT clients to VPN into a network using a Linux
> server/firewall without having to suffer with bad client software (yes
> I know that Windows 2000 itself is bad client software) or with putting a
> Win2k box doing LT2P outside the firewall.

Actually, yes. SSH could do this, at least to a point (though it's not a true
vpn). SSH has an ability known as port forwarding. Basically, here's what it
comes down to.

I want to access an imap server, which resides on mail.remote.com, port 143.
imap specifies that everything happens in clear text, and this is bad. I don't
want my password to be seen. Configure SSH to forward localhost:143 to
mail.remote.com:143, and then login using ssh (this is key, and is not
mentioned often enough in the texts that I have seen). From here, I can tell
my mail client that my imap server is on localhost, port 143, and actually
check my imap email. Using ssh, you can mimic some of the features of a vpn.
It's not perfect, but it might be worth using.

-- 
Michael J. Pedersen
My GnuPG KeyID: 4E724A60        My Public Key Available At: wwwkeys.pgp.net
My GnuPG Key Fingerprint: C31C 7E90 5992 9E5E 9A02 233D D8DD 985E 4E72 4A60
GnuPG available at http://www.gnupg.org