Untangle - Good Software?

[ThreeDee]

untangle is quick and easy to setup and doesnt require much maintence, why moan about it?

OP untangle is a good choice.

lol ..who's moaning? .. Untangle is a good choice ..so is Smoothwall , Endian , IPCop , m0n0wall ..and a host of others ..just depends on what your looking for and what matters more to you as far as overall features, customizations and support (talking about the free versions of all these)


[F]old|[H]ard

 

[AMD_RULES]

well i got a spare box here so i'm gonna order a NIC of newegg and do some testing on Untangle and Smooth and see which I like better....
I have a feeling i'm gonna probably choose untangle

 

[ring.of.steel]

Try m0n0wall if you just want basic NAT.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

ok.

Well is OpenVPN able to be used via a browser?

No..it's a client you install.

SSL VPN is browser based VPN...it's in the paid for corp version..not the free community one.

 

[AMD_RULES]

No..it's a client you install.

SSL VPN is browser based VPN...it's in the paid for corp version..not the free community one.

difference? besides having a price?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Untangle does have some nice things out of the box, but it is also missing some things that are in the other free linux distros and more necessary for a gateway IMO. DNS caching and Caching web proxy are the two biggies for me. If it had those features I could possibly give it a try, but without those I lose some of the main functions my smoothwall does for me.

I've seen talks of that possibly upcoming soon from the mods at Untangles forum.....adding squid/advproxy to the features. Never really paid attention to it in detail though....I always have a Winders box on the LAN for DNS, and generally don't like web caching...in the few instances I've had to implement it was via ISA.

 

[ring.of.steel]

Windows 2003 dns ftw!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

difference? besides having a price?

SSL VPN is browser based....and IMO is much easier to implement..and easier to support. Compared to other more IPSec VPN types where you'd have to have the end user install a Client, such as Sonicwalls Global VPN, or Ciscos VPN client..which if you've ever had to support a bunch of end users...you'll find is a frequent headache, often times uninstalling, rebuilding the TCP stack/winsock, reinstalled, etc etc.

SSL VPN usually installs just a tiny activex or javabased plugin into the end users browser (IE and/or Firefox). Since I've switched over to SSL VPNs for my larger clients (Juniper SA appliances)...I've found reliability has increased greatly...and my need to support them remotely/after hours has gone down nicely..pretty much to nil.

SSL Explorer is a free open source SSL VPN server, you can find at sourceforge. I've not seen any SSL VPNs in freebie *nix distros.

I have found the OpenVPN to be reliable though...have done it on Endian and I think IPCop a while ago.

 

[AMD_RULES]

SSL VPN is browser based....and IMO is much easier to implement..and easier to support. Compared to other more IPSec VPN types where you'd have to have the end user install a Client, such as Sonicwalls Global VPN, or Ciscos VPN client..which if you've ever had to support a bunch of end users...you'll find is a frequent headache, often times uninstalling, rebuilding the TCP stack/winsock, reinstalled, etc etc.

SSL VPN usually installs just a tiny activex or javabased plugin into the end users browser (IE and/or Firefox). Since I've switched over to SSL VPNs for my larger clients (Juniper SA appliances)...I've found reliability has increased greatly...and my need to support them remotely/after hours has gone down nicely..pretty much to nil.

SSL Explorer is a free open source SSL VPN server, you can find at sourceforge. I've not seen any SSL VPNs in freebie *nix distros.

I have found the OpenVPN to be reliable though...have done it on Endian and I think IPCop a while ago.

in that case, i'll have to look into paying for the VPN then...