The VTun web site, in my opinion, does a poor job of explaining what VTun is for, but I think this article from Linux Journal does a much better job of explaining VTun and using it with SSH tunnels.
I’d like to try out VTun, as it would create a virtual network interface through which I could route my IP traffic through an SSH tunnel and I wouldn’t have to have all my network programs (e.g.: Firefox, Thunderbird, etc…) configured to use my SSH tunnel and/or SOCKS proxy (some software doesn’t even support proxies). Basically, it functions as an open source VPN – transparent access to a private network without reconfiguring all of your software to know about a proxy. You can even run it on Mac OS X (see Kurt’s how to).
Another piece of software I’d like to look into is OpenVPN (and here’s an article about it from NewsForge). OpenVPN is an SSL-based open source VPN. What caught my eye is that it supposedly runs on every platform I’m interested in from Linux and FreeBSD to Windows and Mac OS X. There’s even a Cocoa GUI for it on Mac OS X called Tunnelblick.
Do folks love or hate either of these?
If you’re looking for a more ‘simplistic’ VPN solution, check out hamachi. Get it here -> http://www.hamachi.cc/
It is really quite slick.
Thanks for the link.
I did read about Hamachi a few weeks ago, but I haven’t tried it. There’s a nice Wikipedia page describing how it works.
Hello!
We’ve implemented VTUN and OpenVPN for clients. They both work really well. VTUN is fast and easier to set up (no keys, etc.), but OpenVPN is more versatile. The licensed version of OpenVPN server is very affordable and the GUI makes setup a snap.
David