14. Remote Access

Ok. Generally I avoid off-color language, but I've got yet another rant to get off my chest. And while it's mostly off-topic for this blog, I promise to connect the dots...

So there I was, walking the dogs home from work. I crossed the Fremont bridge, then down the block to the one major intersection I need to cross, just in time for the walk sign.

But there are cars stopped right in the middle of the crosswalk, underneath the red light.

At Freelock Computing, we've been using OpenVPN regularly for the last year and a half, both in house and at client sites, and we're huge fans. It's easy to administer, has a variety of security options, and no vulnerabilities have been found to date. It's fast, extremely flexible, and can be set up in site-to-site or road warrior configurations.

Version 2.0 was released on Sunday, after a year or so of being in beta. Version 2.0 makes it possible to tunnel an unlimited number of connections through a single UDP or TCP port--in previous versions, you had to set up one port per connection.

There is now a tool that can easily crack PPTP authentication, which is what is used in the basic Virtual Private Networking standard included in Windows. Because of its wide deployment, PPTP is perhaps the easiest type of VPN to deploy--but it should no longer be considered secure.

Software

• Pop-before-SMTP, authentication for outgoing email
• Helix, an open source media player and server from Real Networks
• OpenSSH, Secure Shell client and server
• PuTTY, open source Windows SSH client
• Filezilla, SFTP client for Windows

OS News has a nice story about OpenVPN.

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5803