VPNs on Mac OS9 or OSX?

$hy_guy asks: "I hope you guys can give me a hand here. I wanted to purchase a new Power Book but I want to be able to still connect to my office via a VPN connection. I am not going into why I'm going to purchase a Power Book but I'm looking for some solutions. Is there anything available for OS9 or OSX, I would assume that there would be a better possiblitiy with OSX. I also rather not run a Windows emulator within OS9 or OSX to do this."

Re:What kind of VPN?

[extra88]

Fortunately, you're wrong. There are always other pieces to the puzzle and I'm sure some vendors screw around with their software but there are many implementations which are compatible. Win2k, OpenBSD, PGPNet, Checkpoint, etc. can all work between each other.

The question of which type of VPN is still very relevant. If it's PPTP (which it probably is), then TunnelBuilder for Classic MacOS will be the solution. If there's a PPTP client for *BSDs, I'm sure someone will port it to Mac OS X. If it's IPSec then its probably PGPNet (part of the commercial PGP) for Classic Mac and who-knows-what for OS X.

Re:What about PGP?

[extra88]

The freeware PGPNet only does point to point encryption. To connect to an office VPN gateway, you have to buy PGP.

Re:Vtun -- runs on FreeBSD, maybe OSX?

[Tet]

Vtun could be an option.

Unlikely. The original request was to be able to connect to the existing office VPN. That almost certainly means a Cisco VPN using IPsec, and Vtun doesn't do IPsec.

OS X has ssh2 out of the box.

[hatless]

Mac OS X, bless its BSD heart, includes an ssh implementation. When you turn on the telnet daemon, it also turns on sshd. It was one of many pleasant surprises.

It would have been helpful if the poster of the original item had mentioned wht kind of VPN they wanted to set up. ssh? PPTP? Something else entirely?

What kind of VPN?

[markhb]

It would really help if the questioner would say what sort of VPN he is trying to connect to. If the office has already standardized on a platform, then there's no point in asking us what kind of client exists for it: what's available is what the vendor makes. None of these are generic with the possible exception of ssh.


-----

Re:What kind of VPN?

[markhb]

Yes, I've heard of IPSec, but I was under the impression that implementations thereof were still essentially vendor-specific (IOW, that there was no such thing as a IPSec client that can connect to any IPSec gateway, the way a browser can connect toany standard http website). If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.


-----

DHCP

[TheZork]

One caveat: if you need DHCP to set up IP over your connection (as you probably would), OS X doesn't support it right now. It'll do BootP, though.

Oops. Re:DHCP

[TheZork]

Sorry. Wrong. For some reason I thought I read "OS X Server". Still holds for that, but not for the desktop version. Also, non-Apple tools are available as a fix.

SSH Tunnels

[HerrNewton]

MacSSH now supports SSH2 and port forwarding, and it's a snap to set-up. Under MacOS X, you should b eable to do it right from the terminal. (Std. disclaimer: I'm a graphic designer.)

----

Vtun -- runs on FreeBSD, maybe OSX?

[1010011010]

Vtun [sourceforge.net] could be an option.

From the FAQ:

1.9 What platforms are supported by VTun ?
VTun was developed on Linux and then ported to several other OS:

Linux (any glibc based distribution)
Solaris
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD and other BSD clones.

I think Darwin, and therefore OSX, is FreeBSD-based, so vtun might work. Don't know how Mach would play into it, though...


- - - - -

Sure!

[bconway]

If the commercial VPN software that currently exists for OS 9.1 doesn't exist of OS X, it soon will be. Alternatively, if you're feeling adventurous, you can always grab one of the free projects out there and compile your own. You'd be amazed at how much faster Samba works under OS X than the Apple equivalent for SMB sharing.

OS X is BSD so...

[cperciva]

You should probably be able to use more or less any BSD VPN daemon. A quick search of FreeBSD's ports collection finds vpnd [sunsite.dk] as an example. While it only officially supports linux and FreeBSD I don't expect you'd have much trouble porting it to OS X.

What about PGP?

[shumacher]

Have you tried PGPnet? It's a little slow, but it's quite secure - and it's free for non commercial use. It's included with PGPFreeware at pgp.com.

SecurityFocus

[Starbreeze]

SecurityFocus.com has a VPN mailing list that you may want to search, and/or subscribe to. I found the contacts I made through it quite helpful in setting up and troubleshooting our VPN.

SSH + PPP?

[bruckie]

Assuming that OS X is fairly similar to Unix, and assuming you have control over both the client and server, you could just set up a PPP session through an SSH tunnel with routing on both ends.

Check the Linux VPN HOWTO [linuxdoc.org] for details.

TunnelBuilder

[update()]

I've never tried it but at my work they distribute TunnelBuilder to Mac users who want to VPN. It runs on OS 9 - I don't know what the OS X status is.

As always, a simple Google search turns up plenty of alternatives. (Ashley Laurent, IntraPort, a Cisco OS X client.) As frequently happens, it doesn't seem like the questioner did the slightest homework before coming here.

Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.

Shiva no go

[cliffjumper222]

My company uses Shiva VPN and there's no Mac client. Shiva before it got bought by Intel had a some dial-in stuff for MacOS but not the VPN client.
Undeterred I tried Virtual PC 3.0. It didn't connect but that could have been the gateway's fault. I've heard it can be done but even if it can I'm fairly sure it'll only tunnel packets from the PC side not the Mac side.
At that I gave up and used a PC for company business. :-(

From versiontracker.com

[DragonPup]

these are for 9, not OS X, anyways, here [versiontracker.com]

-Henry

kame

[Morth]

If you're willing to do quite some work, it seems kame was ported into the darwin kernel quite some while ago, and the kernel parts of IPv6 and IPSec are fully working. However, there's not a single userspace command available, so some porting would be required.

Of course, as mentioned above, pppd over an ssl tunnel is probably an easier solution.

If PPTP and OS X, then yes

[l3377r0lld00d]

If the pr0n-surfing, monkey-spanking mod wanks don't mod this down, here's a good link for a tool that connects OS X to a MS-style PPTP VPN"

http://softrak.stepwise.com/display?pkg=1736&os=20 [stepwise.com]