# OpenVPN vs The Handbook way



## archen (Jul 30, 2009)

I've been tasked with creating a VPN between two networks.  Initially I pulled up the handbook and followed the instructions, and got everything working up until the part about IPSec. It appears that I simply can't get ipsec-tools to work since it can't find the nat transversal option - Which I did patch in and build with option IPSEC_NAT_T into the kernel.

But reading this forum I picked up on Openvpn and I have to say that's looking pretty good right now considering the headaches I'm going through.  I'm rather hesitant to just abandon the method which is recommended in the handbook for a port, but I was wondering if anyone else had any experiences with Openvpn or any advise over which solution they've had better luck with.


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## aragon (Jul 30, 2009)

Actually, I highly recommend net/vtun.  It's far simpler than OpenVPN to setup and maintain, doesn't require generating SSL certificates, and has all the important features one needs for creating a VPN between two unix systems, including encryption, compression, and MSS fixup.


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## aragon (Jul 30, 2009)

Also, if you don't need encryption or anything fancy, and have static IPs on both ends of the link, you can just use FreeBSD's builtin nos-tun(8).  It doesn't get simpler than that.


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