RE: VPN

Chuck, we have a LinkSys VPN appliance that acts as our firewall - low buck, I know, and there are other more secure options. That unit is exposed to the outside world. From home I use a VPN client on my W98 machine. Others have XP, which has IPSEC builtin and can be configured nicely for this router. The goal is to shut down everything and only allow VPN traffic into the internal network. This router uses essentially a password (shared secret), not a digital certificate, so it is more crackable than other systems. There are a number of architectures for firewall/VPN setups that I've seen - I like the integrated appliance approach, but others know the alternatives.

For us this is adequate. We've tried to understand, to some degree, anyway, our exposure, and are satisfied with the cost-risk-benefit of this setup. But please do not go with a solution until you've looked at the risks and the value of what you are protecting, and the cost of protecting it. There's no one-size-fits-all solution, IMO.

Cheers

Vern

At 02:00 PM 2/4/2003 -0500, you wrote:

I am new to all of this (as of late last year and a VPN to allow our Sales
folks to access our AS/400). As you note, this was not always supported.

Our AS/400 isn't public and the VPN router sits behind a firewall. Is that
of concern ?

Thanks,

Chuck