[olug] Home network, firewall, vpn design..

Phil Brutsche phil at brutsche.us
Wed Feb 18 01:46:42 UTC 2004


Ken wrote:
> My primary objective with the OpenBSD firewall was to be "cheap & 
> secure" and make use of the P100.  Obviously the P100 would make a 
> pretty crappy VPN server so I had wanted to use the resources on the 
> internal Linux server for that without directly exposing it to the 
> internet.

Don't underestimate how fast one of those things can be.  PIX-501s are 
actually about the same CPU speed, and the PC has a better PCI bus and 
memory subsystem.

> So, in light of that I have one other idea..  I've been doing some 
> reading on using OpenBSD/pf as a Transparent Packet Filter with no NAT 
> or IP address: http://ezine.daemonnews.org/200207/transpfobsd.html

[...]

> So, trying again, does anyone have any thoughts on this?  I've never 
> tried running a transparent packet filter but have to admit it seem 
> rather enticing (and cool).  I'd be especially curious to know if anyone 
> could still see a potential conflict with the VPN..

As long as you configure the pf rules right it won't make much of a 
difference.  You just need to make sure you let through UDP 500 (for IKE 
key exchange) and IP protocols 50 and 51.

-- 

Phil Brutsche
phil at brutsche.us


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