How do I set up VPN to allow Mac, Linux, and Windows clients

First, let me state that I know very little about networking. I am a software developer. I have a client in Pittsburgh that has a Mac server and a Linux (RHEL) server on a LAN. They have a Netgear FVS 318v3 router on which they had a VPN running. They could do this because they had the router configured for IP-SEC and they only had Mac laptops as clients. I'm told Mac laptops can be configured to connect to IP-SEC VPNs, but Linux (I have Ubuntu) clients cannot.

I'm told that we need an PPTP VPN, and that the Netgear can not act as an endpoint, but can pass PPTP traffic to one of the servers if we set them up as a PPTP server.

We hired two different network consultants to set up the VPN, but neither one is able to set up a VPN to allow both the Mac and Linux laptops to connect.

Why is this so difficult? Lots of companies have VPNs that allow any client to connect.

Would it be better for us to purchase a different router that can act as a PPTP endpoint?

Do I want the router to act as a PPTP endpoint, or would it be better for me to use the Netgear and set up a PPTP service on one of the servers? Or, is there some better solution?

Am I asking the wrong questions here? I really don't know very much about networking. If I'm not even giving the right information or asking the right questions, please give me advice on what I should put here.

Anybody?

From my perspective, your question contains enough detail and is well enough written for the people who know to begin addressing the issue. Unfortunately, I am not the one to help with this VPN situation as I have no experience setting one up either.
All I can suggest is be patient as it is the middle of summer in a lot of the world (hence people on vacation etc.) and also you posted on a weekend, which particularly in summer but other times too, tend to be a little slower around here, with people getting out & away from their machines.

Kind regards,

I found a little info on it. Maybe you did already.
http://www.natecarlson.com/2005/11/2...e-under-linux/

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/VPN-HOWTO/

http://openvpn.net/

Good luck.

Thanks, teckk. It looks like this will be over my head, but can help my consultants.

Sorry I thought others were fixing this.

It should be pretty easy to allow a VPN to be configured between these systems.

Not sure what the easy way to start is. Dunno why they are saying you need point to point. That is GRE and normally used for legacy applications that may need netbios or workgroup over the VPN.

Yes linux can support ipsec but it has to be the same as all the others. Self proclaimed offical site. http://www.ipsec-howto.org/

And one can use dedicated devices too.


Could all support openvpn too I believe.