How well do various products interact?

[Patrick Ethier]

Hi Alex,


 If your 1600 supports IPsec then there shouldn't be any problem. I've
gotten the Cisco IPsec client working with my OpenBSD box so I'm assuming
their routers won't be an issue. The only thing is you won't get access to
all of the added on features of the Cisco VPN stuff.


I've got an appointment with the Cisco Lab here in Montreal to go and run
some tests between OBSD and various Cisco products for the next few weeks.
I'll let you know how it turns out.

Regards,

Patrick Ethier
patrick at secureops.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Strasheim [mailto:alex at PROUST.SUBA.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 12:45 PM
To: VPN at SECURITYFOCUS.COM
Subject: How well do various products interact?


I have never set up a VPN before, but my employer is opening up a 2nd
office and I need to put something in place.

Is it reasonable to use an OpenBSD box on one end of a VPN, and a
Cisco router on the other?  Or to put it another way, how standardized
are the standards?

Right now we have a small Cisco 1600 series router in the first
office.  It's not modular.  We haven't bought the router for the 2nd
office yet.

I'd like to use an existing computer running OpenBSD for the VPN at
the first office, possibly with an add-in crypto card, and have it
talk to a cisco router that can do the VPN in hardware at the 2nd
office.

My feeling is that using Cisco hardware to do this stuff will
be easier and more reliable, but that using existing hardware at the
first office makes more sense than buying a new router that can do the
VPN in hardware.  Even if we have to buy a crypto card to improve
performance, it will only cost us $400, which is a lot less than a new
router.

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