High Availabilty for VPNs
ALTERNATIVE PATH
IPSec prevents many of the clever tricks high-availability products employ. We’ll show you a solution that provides transparent backup for IPSec connections.
System administrators often want a network connection system that switches transparently to a backup if the primary connection goes down. But if you use a VPN with IPsec to protect your traffic en route through the Internet, the backup line needs some special attention. The reason for this attention is that IPsec [1] [2] requires consistent IP addresses at the endpoints of a tunnel, so when the network switches to a different tunnel, the IP addresses must switch to the new endpoints or else existing connections will be terminated. The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP [3]) offers a reliable means of maintaining a highly-available pool of IP addresses with a number of providers. Unfortunately, provider service agreements often prevent admins from using BGP for an existing Internet connection.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes
The latest Linux kernel doesn't really include any big-ticket features, just a lot of lines of code.
-
EU Sovereign Tech Fund Gains Traction
OpenForum Europe recently released a report regarding a sovereign tech fund with backing from several significant entities.
-
FreeBSD Promises a Full Desktop Installer
FreeBSD has lacked an option to include a full desktop environment during installation.
-
Linux Hits an Important Milestone
If you pay attention to the news in the Linux-sphere, you've probably heard that the open source operating system recently crashed through a ceiling no one thought possible.
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.