Secure entry into remote systems

[Jeremy Brown]

Edward wrote:

> I've used ssh locally before, and that is really simple to set up, but 
> because of the open hole I'll be creating my question is really: 
> Should I be learning about setting up VPN tunnels into their systems 
> instead?


I may be a bit naive, but I've always assumed that ssh was relatively 
secure (I know of several businesses and universities that leave SSH 
servers open to the net at large).  I know several Microsoft-y VPN 
implementations have known security issues (e.g. PPTP), so I tend to 
trust them a bit less.  Although I'm sure there are very secure open 
source VPN solutions out there.

I set up Poptop last year:

http://www.poptop.org/

It's a PPTP server.  I remember it being hard to set up 
though...required a hard-to-build kernel module, and uses a modified 
version of pppd to serve incoming VPN connections.  I seem to recall 
googling a bit though and finding RPMS or SRPMS that could be used with 
Fedora core.

Also because of the nature of the way it authenticates 
(challenge/response) Poptop can't use PAM, so you are stuck using 
chap-secrets.

Hope this helps.

Jeremy