Chapter 7: Tunneling and the VPN Protocol Suites

Chapter 7: Tunneling and the VPN Protocol Suites

Overview

VPNs involve a multitude of protocols?for encryption, for authentication, for tunneling. In this chapter, building on what we've covered in the two previous chapters, we'll be concerned with the protocols that bolt the VPN together. These include the tunneling protocols, the protocols that make the connection, and the specifications within the protocols that make the connection private: encryption, authentication, and access controls.

All of these various types of protocols, algorithms, and specifications are mixed and matched in different ways to produce suites of protocols that provide the full range of services needed for a secure VPN. Although we may talk about IPSec or PPTP as if each of them is a single protocol, we're actually dealing with suites of protocols rather than a single entity. As we've already seen, even the IKE key management and distribution protocol is actually a combination of two protocols.

This suite or group structure can create problems because the internal protocols may not quite match from product to product, or the way they are implemented may differ. As we've already mentioned, most Internet protocols are designed by committees, by working groups of the Internet Engineering Task Force. Most Internet protocols work amazingly well, especially considering the hostile environment of the Internet. Nevertheless, if VPN products from different vendors?using what are supposedly the same protocols?are to work together, they have to be selected carefully and it may take a bit of coaxing, and you have to...

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Chapter 7: Tunneling and the VPN Protocol Suites

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