[lug] General VPN comparison

[David Anselmi]

Daniel Webb wrote:
> What is the best VPN for general use?  OpenVPN was mentioned in the
> reverse tunnel thread, is it the best (free/open source) thing out there
> for Linux?  Is it stable?  Are businesses using it for mission-critical
> networks?

Business and mission critical type stuff is IPSec/L2TP in my experience. 
  That's what Cisco uses, and MS.  I've had trouble getting started with 
it on Debian but I've heard of people using it successfully in 
heterogeneous environments.  Eventually it will be easier to get set up. 
  I'm also not sure lately of the merits of OpenSWAN, FreeSWAN, KAME, 
isakmpd, et. al. are.

I've used OpenVPN as it was what was easy enough for me to do (for both 
Windows and Linux clients), but I didn't like it.  There was a silly 
limitation on what netmasks/IPs you could use that bit me, and it needed 
a different port for each user that was going to connect (and the list 
of users was determined in advance).  They may have improved those areas 
significantly though.

SSH/PPP work for many, though I don't think you can do that on Windows. 
  PPTP can mean compiling your own patched stuff, which can be hard. 
But since it's obsolete in Win, why bother?

HTH,
Dave