26 Aug 2002 wardv   » (Journeyer)

IPSec

So I've been playing with IPSec lately. More specifically with a Symantec Firewall/VPN appliance 200.

The good
It boots blazingly fast (3 seconds).
It has a nice web interface.
I suspect it's built on Freeswan.

The bad
It doesn't interoperate well with other IPSec implementations. With FW/1 4.1 alledgedly it works, but I can assure you that with FW/1 NG it doesn't. A VPN between two of these beasts works just fine as well, of course. It also seems to work with a Cisco router on the other side.
It's a 'black box' - well technically a yellow one. The logs are not very extensive, and the web interface, however nice, gives me a limited feel. I guess I just want a prompt, I'm a bit oldfashioned.

Cisco

Setting up a VPN tunnel through a NAT device (in this case a Cisco 827) turns out to be slightly troublesome. The problem is the Port translation done by the NAT - IPSec doesn't really like that. But here's an article that tells you which line to add to your config to make it work. Beware, however, you might need to update your IOS....

Life, the universe,...

Last week at work. I'm getting my paperwork together for my application to the University of Sussex. It's complicated and involves translations of my diploma and transcript. I also need references - luckily I have built enough social capital to get a few of those.

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