OpenVPN: Building And Integrating Virtual Private Networks: Learn How To Build Secure VPNs Using This Powerful Open Source Application
admin | VPN Shop | February 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
Price : $51.98
Product Description
This book is a comprehensive guide to using OpenVPN for building both secure VPNs. The book is written in a very friendly style that makes 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. It’s suitable for both experienced and new OpenVPN users.
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, the book 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. While providing the necessary theoretical background, the book takes a practical approach, presenting plenty of examples.
What you will learn from this book
Chapter 1 looks at what VPNs are, how they evolved during the last decade, why it is necessary to modern Benterprises, how typical VPNs work. The chapter also covers some essential networking concepts.
Chapter 2 explains VPN security issues, including symmetric and asymmetric encryption, the SSL/TLS library, and SSL certificates.
Chapter 3 introduces OpenVPN. In this chapter, we learn about the history of OpenVPN, how OpenVPN works, and how OpenVPN compares to IPSec VPN applications.
Chapter 4 covers installing OpenVPN on both Windows, the Mac, Linux, and FreeBSD. It covers the installation on Linux from the source code and RPM packages. Installation on Suse and Debian is covered in detail.
Chapter 5. Here an encryption key for OpenVPN is created and it is then used to setup up our first OpenVPN Tunnel between two windows systems in the same network. The key is then copied on a Linux system and this system is connected through a tunnel to the first windows machine.
Chapter 6 shows how to create x509 server and client certificates for use with OpenVPN. easy-rsa which comes with OpenVPN and is available for both Windows and Linux is used.
Chapter 7 reviews the syntax of the command line tool openvpn, which enables building tunnels quickly. The configuration options of openvpn are covered in detail with examples.
Chapter 8 shows how to make the example tunnels created earlier safer and persistent by choosing a reliable combination of configuration file parameters. It then covers how to configure firewalls on Linux and Windows to work with OpenVPN.
Chapter 9 focuses on using xca, the advanced Windows tool with which x509 certificates can be easily managed. Its Linux equivalent, Tinyca2, which can even manage multiple certificate authorities, is also covered.
Chapter 10 covers advanced OpenVPN configurations, including Tunneling through a proxy server, pushing routing commands to clients, pushing and setting the default route through a tunnel, Distributed compilation through VPN tunnels with distcc, and OpenVPN scripting.
Chapter 11 shows how to debug and monitor VPN tunnels. It covers standard networking tools that can be used for scanning and testing the connectivity of a VPN server.
Who this book is written for
Network administrators and any one who is interested in building secure VPNs using OpenVPN. It presumes basic knowledge of Linux, but no knowledge of VPNs is required. All basic VPN and relevant security concepts are covered.
Customer Reviews
Review date : 2008-03-09 
OpenVPN by Markus Feilner is a comprehensive reference of the excellent OpenVPN software. The book’s subtitle, Building and Integrating Virtual Private Networks does it justice.
In 11 Chapters, the author introduces VPN and VPN security, shows you how to install OpenVPN on a number of different platforms (incl. Linux, MacOSX and Windows), and runs the reader through configuring OpenVPN as a server and/or as a client.
Securing OpenVPN with X.509 Certificates is well covered, including creating certificates with some special (GUI) tools. The OpenVPN configurations are well covered and the book closes with a chapter on Advanced configuration (tunnels, scripting, authentication, etc.) and Troubleshooting.
All in all, the book is for advanced users. The introduction is a bit quick for a novice.
The book lacks diagrams of what the author is showing us when he builds tunnels and discusses possibilities. Without a great deal of imagination (or experience), it is hard to follow without network diagrams.
Apart from that, I recommend the book to anybody who has to set up OpenVPN, and it is good that Feilner shows very clearly what you do if yo are on Windows XP.
Review date : 2007-03-19
This book is ‘okay’ at best. It seems very simplified. They focus on testing and deploying OpenVPN with with windows clients.. then they have a whole chaper on using webmin to configure your firewall etc. I mean.. come on. If I am setting up my own VPN .. i probably am not using webmin… and if i was.. this isn’t supposed to be a book about webmin.
I would suggest taking a look at some gentoo wiki pages on using openvpn. They are quick and strait foward. This book could have been cut down to about 3 or 4 chapters.. the rest is fluff.. and worthless fluff at that.
Review date : 2007-02-19
OpenVPN is an easy-to deploy system to get VPNs running. it Uses SSL to secure the data you are about to send over the net. OpenVPN is an all userland thing and therefore is easy to maintin. The book describes in detail how to get started with openVPN using a number of different platforms. It has an ease followable roadmap to get your VPN up and running in most cases. But it lacks imho the details on specific more complex cases. Also the book touches briefly on version 2.1 but does not address some of the interesting details of it and how to handle them. The book has a number of screenshots that describe how to handle things on different platforms (windows, unix). THe appendix is a valuable tool to find more resources on the net, once you get started.
In short: good beginners book, but when it comes to complex setups do not expect that much from this book.
Review date : 2006-11-07
This book should be titled OpenVPN for Dummies. It’s a very simplified description of the OpenVPN tool, giving simple examples which could easily be found on the internet. The book content is almost half screen shots and listing with limited descriptions. It’s missing any sort of detail on the complex issues of using OpenVPN. I hate to be so blunt, but I was severely disappointed. My advice is to pass on the book read the HOWTO on the OpenVPN web site.
Review date : 2006-09-05 
OpenVPN is an excellent open source SSL-based VPN solution that still isn’t very well-known, but this book should make it more accessible to network administrators, and help accelerate its adoption. The book is a practical reference, suitable to both beginning and advanced users. The author, Markus Feilner, has done his homework well, and the book reflects his extensive experience using OpenVPN, particularly with Linux and Windows networks. He has structured the book so that it starts at the basics, and then it builds in complexity. It makes good use of informal explanatory text, as well as tables, examples, exercises, and screenshots. The book also covers additional programs that are useful in working with OpenVPN. Finally, there is an appendix with links to further information on many related topics, followed by a good index. One minor area that the book does not discuss is the use of OpenVPN with the OpenWrt Linux distribution for wireless routers. Nevertheless, the book should save users many hours of searching for OpenVPN solutions.
