Historically, only large companies could afford secure networks, which they created from expensive leased lines. Smaller folks had to make do with the relatively untrusted Internet. Nowadays, even large companies have to go outside their private nets, because so many people telecommute or log in while they're on the road. How do you provide a low-cost, secure electronic network for your organization? The solution is a virtual private network: a collection of technologies that creates secure connections or "tunnels" over regular Internet lines--connections that can be easily used by anybody logging in from anywhere. A number of products now exist to help you develop that solution. This book tells you how to plan and build a VPN. It starts with general concerns like costs, configuration, and how a VPN fits in with other networking technologies like firewalls. It continues with detailed descriptions of how to install and use VPN technologies that are available for Windows NT and Unix, such as PPTP and L2TP, Altavista Tunnel, Cisco PIX, and the secure shell (SSH). New features in the second edition include SSH, which is a popular VPN solution for Unix systems, and an expanded description of the IPSec standard, for which several vendors have announced support. Topics include:

• How the VPN compares to other available networking technologies

• Introduction to encryption, firewalls, the IPSec standard, and other technologies that let VPNs work

• Point to Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and L2TP

• The Altavista Tunnel

• The Cisco PIX Firewall

• Secure Shell (SSH)

• Maintenance and troubleshooting

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 19 Ratings

Well.. Almost Useless - 2001-08-04
Reviewer Rating:
This book was a big disappointment. It does gloss over alot of the key VPN ideas, but there is not much substance. I've learned more from reading various tidbits off the internet.

Also, before you even consider using PPTP you should read the CounterPane cryptanalysis paper on PPTP.

http://www.counterpane.com/pptpv2-paper.html PPTP on windows NT is just not secure!

For a total newbie, this book might give them an idea of what to look for on the internet, but besides that I don't see too much value in this book.

I wouldn't buy it again, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that I liked.

Innacurate and old - 2003-07-23
Reviewer Rating:
I didn't check out the publication date of this book when I bought it (1998) so my dissapointment is partly my fault. It is, unsuprisingly, very outdated (anyone actually remember the altavista tunnel?). However, much of the info that remains, even general VPN fundamentals, are flawed and innacurate. This book will hinder you if you are trying to understand proper VPN network topologies.

BAD book....O'Reilly! 2nd Edition! - 2000-02-16
Reviewer Rating:
I so agree with "This book is a blot on O'Reilly's reputation. The editor(s) must have been asleep". I have many O'Reilly books, and they all are good...but not this one. I trusted the O'Reilly's editors. So I ordered this book before it was published. I wish I had the chance to read the reviews....

Virtual Private Networks, 2nd Edition (O'Reilly Nutshell) - 2000-02-28
Reviewer Rating:
I'm new to the world of VPN. This book laid some ground work for me to start with. The other reviews consider this book as usless, but now after having read this book, I now have a basis to gauge other work by. After all, as another review stated, there is not much new material out there.

Perfect - 2003-06-24
Reviewer Rating:
This book solved a lot of problems for me. While much of the product coverage no longer applies, the theory and practice of the VPN, as well as the basic need for such a technology gave me the information I needed to convince my upper management to use VPN's better.

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