Re: Generic IPSEC vpn plugin

[Peter Robinson <pbrobinson gmail com>]

>> Is there, or is there planned, a generic IPSEC vpn plugin for
>> NetworkManager? I can see support for the cisco vpnc client, and then
>> some other various ones. I would have thought with the site-to-site
>> ipsec and client side stuff being the major enterprise way of doing
>> it, and the kernel having full IPSEC support that there would have
>> been a generic ipsec plugin ages ago. And one with profiles for most
>> of the common hardware out there
>> (cisco/netscreen/alteon/checkpoint/fortigate etc) would be very cool
>> :-)
>
> Openswan has a GSoC project submission for this. One of the issues is
> the architecture of NM, which focusses on user-based, and the the
> architecture of ipsec, which is host-based. This creates some issues,
> one of which is where and how to store and pass user/host credentials.

Well an ipsec vpn can be either a site-to-site tunnel which is system
wide, but it can also be client side which is just like vpnc or any of
the other current vpn ones which would be user based. I wouldn't have
thought it would be any different to the issues that were had with the
system wide ethernet vs bringing it up on login.

> By next week we should know if this project is starting. We did get a
> few applications for this.

Awesome! Out of interest is there a list of the network manager gsoc
stuff for NetworkManger? Feel free to add me to the testing list. I
have access through my job for testing of either site-to-site or
client side IPSEC with cisco PIX, cisco IOS, Alteon VPN concentrator,
juniper netscreen, fortigate and checkpoint firewalls. That probably
covers most of the enterprise stuff out there.

Cheers,
Peter