OpenVPN
OpenVPN is a robust and highly configurable VPN (Virtual Private Network) daemon which can be used to securely link two or more private networks using an encrypted tunnel over the Internet. OpenVPN's principal strengths include wide cross-platform portability, excellent stability, support for dynamic IP addresses and NAT, adaptive link compression, single TCP/UDP port usage, a modular design that offloads most crypto tasks to the OpenSSL library, and relatively easy installation that in most cases doesn't require a special kernel module.
| Tags | Security Cryptography Networking Firewalls |
|---|---|
| Licenses | GPL |
| Operating Systems | POSIX Linux Mac OS X BSD OpenBSD Solaris FreeBSD NetBSD Windows Windows |
| Implementation | C |
Recent releases
- 22 May 2007 01:37
Changes: Remaining issues with TAP driver signing on Vista x64 were worked out. OpenVPN will now run on Vista x64 with driver signing enforcement enabled. A 64-bit portability bug in the time_string function was fixed.
- 22 May 2007 00:49
Changes: The Windows installer was updated with OpenSSL 0.9.7l DLLs to fix published vulnerabilities. A TAP-Win32 bug that caused a BSOD on Windows Vista was fixed. The TAP-Win32 driver was upgraded to version 8.4.
- 18 Apr 2005 05:23
Changes: This release improves scalability and offers centralized management for VPN configurations supporting a large number of clients. It adds load balancing and failover support, a new management interface providing real-time control of running OpenVPN daemons, and major revisions to the documentation, including a complete rewrite of the HOWTO.
- 24 Nov 2003 16:05
Changes: This long-awaited major release adds Win2000/XP support, tunnel-over-TCP or HTTP support, and better MTU options to work around problems with PMTU discovery or IP fragmentation.
- 05 Sep 2003 14:14
Changes: An md5.h include has been added to crypto.c to fix a build problem on OpenBSD.
- All comments
Recent commentsgreat multi-platform vpn solution
I've been using OpenVPN for years now, and it's proven to be a solid and reliable solution, not only for use with Linux, but also with Windows as well.
I commonly setup a Linux based OpenVPN server and deploy Windows clients.
Very easy to use and can be NATted easily, not like with IPSEC.
I can also highly recommend the graphical front end for windows (OpenVPN GUI for Windows) which is also packaged as a complete installer including OpenVPN. It's available from http://openvpn.se/
Excellent Software
I've setup many VPNs in a variety of environments using OpenVPN over the past year. Most of the VPNs provide tunnels between heterogeneous operating systems and are used 24/7. Thus far, I have not encountered a single unstable installation. Compared to the IPSec firewalls that I have installed in the past, the OpenVPN installations are intuitive, require a fraction of the time, and function properly the first time that they are brought online. I highly recommend OpenVPN over ANY other product that I have used or considered to date.
Great stuff!
An excellent piece of software -- much less intrusive than ipsec (and easier to tunnel, and more amenable to running inside a UML instance); highly configurable; quite robust (though I haven't deployed it to the field yet, but all testing has gone well thus far). Additionally, the Windows port is remarkably stable for being in its first-ever beta cycle.
Kudos to the author.