Topic: FTP vs VPN

[Ken Wong]

Great question Glenn. I too have spent many a sleepness night pondering that very question.

Joeseph, I noticed that the VPN solution you suggested in response to Glenn's question re: opening up external FTP'g was Hardware based. Will it not be possible for the legion e-smith-o-philes to set-up VPNs with software like FreeS/Wan? Are the software solutions too costly in terms of a performance penalty to be a viable solution? Anybody...?

My evangelical efforts have been largely successful in that I have converted most of my friends into e-smith believers. The next step would be to be able to have us all "VPN'd" to each other.

Thanks in advance!

Ken Wong

[Charlie Brady]

Ken Wong wrote:

> Great question Glenn. I too have spent many a sleepness night
> pondering that very question.

Poor you!

> Joeseph, I noticed that the VPN solution you suggested in
> response to Glenn's question re: opening up external FTP'g was
> Hardware based. Will it not be possible for the legion
> e-smith-o-philes to set-up VPNs with software like FreeS/Wan?

Certainly one day. Fran Boon has done some of the work - see http://www.partyvibe.com/e-smith. But it's not at the top of the TODO list yet. Stay tuned.

> Are the software solutions too costly in terms of a performance
> penalty to be a viable solution?

As long as you stay away from Gigabit links, and 386 CPUs, I don't think so.

> The next step would be to be able to have us all "VPN'd"
> to each other.

Let us know when you get there, and don't forget to contribute the code

Charlie