What is pptpproxy ?
pptpproxy forwards PPTP VPN connections through a Linux firewall.
What's a PPTP, and what's a VPN ?
Very briefly: a VPN lets you securely connect your home computer to your corporate network. PPTP is a kind of VPN.
Here are some useful links:
http://www.poptop.org
http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/vpn.htm
What good is it to me ?
Here's a scenario where pptpproxy will help:
- You have a Win2k box at home that you'd like to telecommute from.
- Said Win2k box is behind a Linux firewall
- You're trying to hitch onto your corporate network PPTP VPN server to get some work done.
Here's another:
- You have a Win2k PPTP server at your company.
- Said PPTP server box is behind a Linux firewall
- You'd like to connect to it from a remote place (i.e. Home)
Who wrote it ?
Why did you write this ?
pptpproxy is the byproduct of me getting tired of trying to get iptables, ipchains or whatever it's called this week to properly forward PPTP through my Linux firewall. Patching and recompiling kernels is fun once in a while, but one eventually tires of it.
Sticking to what I know I wrote a good old forwarder daemon. It's most probably not as elegant as a kernel+iptables based solutions, but it has the very sizeable advantage of Working For Me (tm).
Since there might be other people out there who do not consider fiddling for hours with iptables, tcpdump and kernel code the epitome of a good week-end, I thought I'd share the thing.