Re: VPN versus SSH

on 10/3/2004 11:41 PM D@7@k|N& said the following:

 >>What is the difference here?  With Smoothwall, it
 >>seems very easy to SSH into a pc on your Green
 >>interface from outside using port forwarding.  On the
 >>other hand, it seems rather complicated to do set up
 >>VPN.
 >>
 >>Maybe I am not understanding VPN completely...  I have
 >>read the FAQ on the Smoothwall forum by Tiago, but did
 >>not see any advantages that SSH did not already
 >>provide.
 >>
 >>Could someone please be so kind as to explain this to
 >>me?

> Well, I'm not a VPN expert by any means, so take this for what it's worth.  A
> VPN can allow any communications between a remote system and your local
> network.  For example, over a VPN you can email, map drives, web surf, etc.
> While these same services can be configured to tunnel over SSH, it takes a
> fair amount of configuration, and it's on a per service basis.  Once your VPN
> connection is established, it's as if you lived on the GREEN network.
> However, piping services through SSH, can be tedious, and some can't even be
> done, so the functionality would be incongruous with what you would over a
> VPN.

One thing you didn't mention, D@7@k|N&, is that out of the 
box, tunneling stuff through SSH requires one to use the root 
account.  It's probably not a good idea to hand out root 
access.  With VPN, user management can be, well, more manageable.

-Adam
_______________________________________________
gpl mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.smoothwall.org/mailman/listinfo/gpl

SmoothWall Stash - Buy Our Stuff! http://cafepress.com/smoothwall