Can a VirtualBox Guest Provide a Secure Connection Over Insecure Public WiFi?
 

Hi Everyone,
I'm not sure what tech language to use to even ask this question, but I'd like to research it and learn how to do it, if it is possible.

I'd like to have a secure connection over public insecure wifi, and I'm wondering if I can use something like IPCop, (pfSense) or some similar thing to set up a secure connection on my laptop. I think this is called SSL tunneling? Is is possible to configure one of the Linux/BSD routers to encrypt and connect to various places securely for at least a safer than "regular" connection. Or would the IPCop, pfSense or whatever have to first connect to some other SSL server (that I might have to pay for) to allow more secure browsing? Hope I'm making sense. If so, please tell me the correct language to use that I may search for this info so I can learn about it. Thanks.

gentisle

No need to go virtual for this one. Search the web for VPN. Virtual Private Network. You connect to a server over a encrypted channel. Then all your other traffic goes through this channel and flows onward from there. There might be even some free servers you can use.

Nother thing would be a SSH socks proxy. Also I know little about this.
Also falling into the family of VPN are ipsec connections. Nother thing you might want to read up.

All of the mentioned have incommon that you need some server some where which you can connect and establish a secured channel.

zhjim, thanks. I guess that is what I'm asking, can I use VirtualBox and something like pfSense to create a VPN, that could be used to connect to places on the web securely.

Depends how you want to do it. I would personally not bother. You will have to use the pfsense or vpn server software on a network that you know works. So if you have a public ip, your home could be used to have the vpn server run and listen for connections.

You the use software to connect to the vpn running at home but you will have to make sure you tunnel all traffic over the vpn.

Next up is what i would recommend. Like mentioned before, get a cheap vpn service. I run a kvm setup with a virtual router and honestly, if i used only vpn, i would not bother with the extra admin work and electricity bill. More convenient and cheaper to just sign up for a service.

If on the other hand you are paying for vps hosting and a vpn client, then the operating costs start to be a little more equal if you run something from home. That is only if you already have a proper fiber connection and computer components setup and not considering those costs as well. But without fiber, a public spot using vpn over a dsl connection at your end will be like pulling teeth unless you have extremely basic surfing requirements.

You will be able to use virtualbox but you will really be shooting yourself in the foot. VB runs way slower than xen and kvm, now add the lost performance with encryption and decryption requirements... That is not going to be a fun experience add on top of that the routing in software...

I would also recommend you check if you have vtd support and then get some nice intel nics supporting SR-IOV. They are not that expensive. That will give a nice boost because on pfsense you will get stuck with emulating e1000 nics, so you loose virtio performance, but if you can directly assign the hardware that will no longer be an issue and will really boost throughput.

Thanks ericson007. I'm only running Windows XP Pro on this laptop, and Linux is out of the question for it. So no kvm or xen. I looked at some of those vpn services, and I might do that. Thanks for all your info.