In today’s world, users need access to their IT systems regardless of where they are.

Support for Virtual Private Networking (VPN) is provided as standard on all ‘gateway’ products (School Guardian, Advanced Firewall, Corporate Firewall and the SmoothGuard 1000-UTM).

SmoothWall’s integrated VPN solution is flexible and easy-to-manage, with a cost-effective licensing model. It combines Secure Remote Access (for mobile and home users) together with site-to-site VPN connectivity (e.g., the inter-linking of branch and head-office networks).

Secure Remote Access is provided via Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), IPSec or SSL. SSL VPN facilitates full integration with Microsoft Active Directory® and other LDAP authentication systems. Inter-office VPN connectivity is based on IPSec technology and includes a fully featured IPSec VPN gateway, including support for the latest AES (Rijndael) encryption algorithm, together with 3DES and all other current encryption algorithms.

Complex VPN networks can be constructed using multiple VPN Gateways, such as to connect regional branch offices to their country head office, with further links from these offices back to their international head office. Local Certificate Authorities can be used to issue the x509 certificates for local VPN connections, with a central Certificate Authority issuing the certificates used to authenticate the international connections.

School Guardian and Corporate Firewall will support up to one hundred VPN tunnels*. Advanced Firewall and the UTM-1000 will support up to a thousand VPN tunnels*, which can be distributed across multiple Internet connections.

* Depending upon the server hardware performance and Internet connection bandwidth.