I have been tasked with setting up a secure VPN to our business network.

I would like to use freeswan/openswan for this, But I have concerns about the compatibility with windows XP clients. I may have to instruct users (of limited ability) to setup the vpn connection on their own laptops.

I have looked at a number of guides and all have more steps than i would like.

Does anybody use any other Linux vpn solutions that are windows client friendly??
Or have a way to configure openswan to be friendly to them?

Thanks.

I set up openvpn for this. The gatewayserver produces also a zip file with

the following files : username.crt username.key username.ovpn ca.crt readme.txt
in the username.ovpn I substitute for every user the username.

The server generates with a script these zipfile and copies them so a fileserver where each user has his private folder (shared via samba to their laptop)
The server runs this script every week to generate keys which are valid for a month.
(in case a laptop gets lost, it is relative harmless, but you can off course add a password to the username.key

all a user has to do is to extract the zip file in the correct directory on his laptop, but maybe it is even possible to script this in windows somehow.

the installation in windows is very easy I was told.


about ipsec, I know it is possible but there are some limitations for the network, since not everything can survive NAT, while openvpn can even be used via http-proxy (or udp or tcp)

regards

tlowk