Beginning Openvpn 2.0.9  (English, Paperback, Feilner Markus)

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, it 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.

This is a practical guide to using OpenVPN for building both basic and complex Virtual Private Networks. It will save you a lot of time and help you build better VPNs that suit your requirements. While providing only necessary theoretical background, the book takes a practical approach, presenting plenty of examples. It starts with an introduction into the theory of VPNs and OpenVPN, followed by a simple installation example on almost every available platform. After a concise and ordered list of OpenVPN's parameters, we dive into connecting several machines in a safe way. The last third of the book deals with professional and high-end scenarios, and also mobile integration. After having read the whole book and followed and understood all the examples, you will be an expert in VPN, Security, and especially in OpenVPN Technology. This book was written for version 2.0.9 of OpenVPN, but all examples have been tested and run smoothly on version 2.1 too.

Learn how to build secure VPNs using this powerful Open Source application

What you will learn from this book :

• Install OpenVPN on Windows Server, Vista, and Mac OS X and also on different Linux versions and FreeBSD
• Learn basic security concepts necessary to understand VPNs and OpenVPN in particular
• Take a look at encryption matters, symmetric and asymmetric keying, and certificates
• Connect Windows and Linux systems and safely transfer the necessary encryption keys using WinSCP
• Learn about OpenVPN, its development, features, resources, advantages, and disadvantages compared to other VPN solutions, especially IPsec
• Discuss non-standard and advanced methods of installing OpenVPN by compiling the source code provided by the OpenVPN project
• Create an encryption key for OpenVPN and use it to set up an OpenVPN tunnel between two Windows systems in the same network
• Create X.509 server and client certificates for use with OpenVPN and learn how to use tools to debug and monitor VPN tunnels
• Create and administer certificates that have to be transferred to the machines that are supposed to take part in the VPN
• Configure two different firewall networks that connect to each other through the secure OpenVPN tunnel
• Install and use XCA and TinyCA2 to generate certificate revocation lists that are used to block unwanted connections by formerly authorized clients
• Install OpenVPN on Windows Mobile and Smartphones running embedded Linux, like Nokia's Maemo platform
• Analyze the flow of datagrams between the VPN servers and the connected networks with tools like ifconfig, ping, traceroute, and mtr

Approach
This book is an easy introduction to OpenVPN. While providing only necessary theoretical background, it takes a practical approach, presenting plenty of examples. It is written in a friendly style making this complex topic easy and a joy to read. It first covers basic VPN concepts, then moves to introduce basic OpenVPN configurations, before covering advanced uses of OpenVPN.

Who this book is written for
This book is for both experienced and new OpenVPN users. If you are interested in security and privacy in the internet, or want to have your notebook or mobile phone connected safely to the internet, the server in your company, or at home, you will find this book useful. It presumes basic knowledge of Linux, but no knowledge of VPNs is required.

About The Author
Markus Feilner is a Linux professional from Regensburg, Germany, and has been working with open-source software since the mid 1990s. His first contact with UNIX was a SUN cluster and SPARC workstations at Regensburg University (during his studies of geography). Since the year 2000, he has published several documents used in Linux training all over Germany. In 2001, he founded his own Linux consulting and training company, Feilner IT feilner-it.net. Here and as trainer, consultant, and systems engineer at

Millenux, Munich, he focused on groupware, collaboration, and virtualization with Linux-based systems and networks.

Since 2007, he has been an editor at the German Linux-Magazin, where he writes about Open Source Software for both printed and online magazines, including the Linux Technical Review and the Linux Magazine International linux-magazine.com. He regularly giese speeches and lectures at conferences in Germany. Security and VPN have never left his focus in his publications. He authored OpenVPN: Building and Integrating Virtual Private Networks in 2006, and Scalix: Linux Administrator's Guide published by Packt in 2008.

He is interested in anything about geography, travel, photography, philosophy (especially that of open-source software), global politics, soccer, and literature, but always has too little time for these hobbies.

Markus Feilner supports Linux4afrika - a project bringing Linux computers into African schools. For more information please visit linux4afrika.de!

Norbert Graf is a professional IT specialist from Munich with many years of experience in network security and server virtualization. His special fields of interests are Linux-based Firewalls, VMware, and XEN Virtualization.

Since 2002 he has been working as a Consultant for an IT company near Munich, for customers from the healthcare sector like hospitals or pharmaceutical concerns to small companies.

He made his first experiment with computers with the Commodore C64 learning to program in basic, followed by an x86 processor PC with DOS and Windows. He is still working with Windows and Linux networks everyday. His field of work includes especially integrating Linux Servers like Proxies or OpenVPN Servers in Microsoft Active Directory infrastructures.

Since 2007 he has published several articles (mostly about Windows and Linux cooperation) together with Markus Feilner in the German and International Linux-Magazine.

In November 2007 his son Moritz was born and made the whole family very happy.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1: VPN—Virtual Private Network
Chapter 2: VPN Security
Chapter 3: OpenVPN
Chapter 4: Installing OpenVPN on Windows and Mac
Chapter 5: Installing OpenVPN on Linux and Unix Systems
Chapter 6: Advanced OpenVPN Installation
Chapter 7: Configuring an OpenVPN Server—The First Tunnel
Chapter 8: Setting Up OpenVPN with X.509 Certificates
Chapter 9: The Command openvpn and Its Configuration File
Chapter 10: Securing OpenVPN Tunnels and Servers
Chapter 11: Advanced Certificate Management
Chapter 12: OpenVPN GUI Tools
Chapter 13: Advanced OpenVPN Configuration
Chapter 14: Mobile Security with OpenVPN
Chapter 15: Troubleshooting and Monitoring
Appendix: Internet Resources and More
Index