Quadro supports several kinds of VPN connections such as IPSec, L2TP and PPTP connections.
Attention: L2TP tunnels have no data encryption mechanism.
An IPSec Connection includes authentication and encryption to protect data integrity and confidentiality. It is private because the data is encrypted between two VPN gateways. This encryption makes it very difficult for anyone to intercept data and capture sensitive information such as passwords. The Quadro can be set up to act as a IPsec router, if it is connected to the Internet with a fixed IP or as a IPSec Road Warrior, if using dynamic IP addresses.
When Quadro is connected to the Internet with a fixed IP address, it will be set up to act as a VPN gateway. Quadro is then prepared to establish an IPSec connection with another VPN gateway device, but also allows access to Road Warriors. A notebook /laptop used by a traveling employee could also be a Road Warrior. Access to their company's intranet via an IPSec connection can be obtained regardless of their location.
Quadro can also be set up to act as a Road Warrior. If a home office is connected to the Internet via Quadro with PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol) and dynamic IP addressing, setting up Quadro as a Road Warrior will allow an IPSec connection to the corporate network.
PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) protocol is used to create a virtual private network (VPN) over the Internet. Remote users can access their corporate networks via any ISP that supports PPTP on its servers. PPTP encapsulates any type of network protocol (IP, IPX, etc.) and transports it over IP. Therefore, if IP is the original protocol, IP packets ride as encrypted messages inside PPTP packets running over IP. PPTP is based on the point-to-point protocol (PPP) protocol and the generic routing encapsulation (GRE) protocol. Encryption is performed by Microsoft's Point-to-Point Encryption (MPPE), which is based on RC4.
L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol) is a protocol from the IETF that allows a PPP session to run over the Internet or an ATM or frame relay network. L2TP does not include encryption (as does PPTP). Derived from Microsoft's Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and Cisco's Layer 2 Forwarding (L2F) technology, L2TP encapsulates PPP frames into IP packets either at the remote user's PC or at an ISP that has an L2TP remote access concentrator (LAC). The LAC transmits the L2TP packets over the network to the L2TP network server (LNS) at the corporate side. Large carriers may also use L2TP to offer remote POPs to smaller ISPs. Users in the remote locations dial into the modem pool of an L2TP access concentrator, which forwards L2TP traffic over the Internet or private network to the L2TP servers at the ISP side, which sends them on to the Internet.
For PPTP and L2TP Connections two parties are needed: a Client and a Server. The Client is responsible for establishing the connection. The Server is waiting for clients and it is not able to initiate the connection itself.
Each side is specified by the Host Name and a Password. The client should know the server's name and password (Quadro's server has no password) and the server should set the client's host name and a password. The local and remote settings should match on the client's and server's hosts to establish a connection successfully.
Clients and Servers are identified by their hostnames which means that only one client can be connected to the server in the same network. Servers also define the range of IP addresses that are assigned to the Server and Client hosts participating in a connection.
The IPSec Configuration and PPTP/L2TP Configuration links lead to the appropriate pages where existing connections are listed and new ones may be created.Attention: It is strongly recommended not to run simultaneously different types of VPN tunnels between same endpoints.