Linux Firewall Appliance that Supports iPhone VPN

Question

I'm look for a Linux based Firewall Appliance that supports incoming iPhone VPN connections out of the box.

The rest here is the current status of my research into this topic.

Currently I'm using IPCop with a PPTP / L2TP addon currently to shield my home network and allow VPN connections with my iPhone. But lately I'm not that enthused with IPCop because of lacking updates as well as other problems (e.g. PPTP addon doesn't properly work with the newest IPCop version).

So I'm looking for another Firewall that has the usual firewall features, but the most important is a propert support for VPN connections from the iPhone. To my knowledge only PPTP / L2TP is the way to go when using Linux because of problems with IPSec. I've looked at the IPFire and Endian Firewalls, they are all nice and working, but neither supports PPTP / L2TP and the delivered IPSec implemenation cannot be handled by the iPhone.

Does anyone have suggestion for another Firewall appliance that supports this?

ciao, elm

I'm looking for this as well, but from my research, the only possibility would be to use l2tp, and that isn't encrypted. To get encryption, you have to use IPSec or PPTP, and the iphone only supports Cisco equipment, at least as far as I can tell. — Matt Simmons, Jan 22 '10 at 22:21
I'm not sure about the security / encryption. Even though cryptoanalysis of PPTP was successful, AFAIK it is still considered secure for long complex passwords. — Elmar Weber, Jan 24 '10 at 10:16

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 22 '10 at 22:21

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Pfsense( http://www.pfsense.com/ ) is BSD based and has an OpenVPN addon. Very reliable and really easy to use.

answered Jan 22 '10 at 22:21

einstiien

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openvpn servers do not support iphone's built-in vpn options. – Brian De Smet Jan 22 '10 at 22:36
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pfSense also supports pptp and ipsec vpns. – 3dinfluence Jan 22 '10 at 22:53
Yes, sorry, not thinking. I just knew pfsense worked with the iPhone – einstiien Jan 22 '10 at 23:14
Thanks for the suggestion. I just checked pfSense and it has all the features I am accustomed to from IPCop and dozen more plus PPTP with iPhone works as expected. Hopefully I've never to do anything on the command line the BSD way, but that's another story =) – Elmar Weber Jan 24 '10 at 11:07
Just tumbled on this question again, I've been using pfSense for the better part of a year now and have never looked back. – Elmar Weber Jan 04 '11 at 21:18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 22 '10 at 22:41

pfSense version 1.2.3 has a pptp server built-in which works with the iPhone. Version 2 will in theory support l2tp which should work with the iPhone.

Astaro Security Gateway supports the Cisco IPSec support on the iPhone. This is a linux based system with custom commercial frontend. It is free for non-commercial use I believe.

Linux Firewall Appliance that Supports iPhone VPN

2 Answers2