PPTP VPN for XiVO Is Ready
Believe it or not, Microsoft introduced the Point-to-Point-Tunneling-Protocol (PPTP) with Windows 95. Back then we knew it as Dial-Up Networking. Suffice it to say that, in those days, PPTP was anything but secure. Unfortunately, the bad name kinda stuck. For the most part, the security issues have been addressed with the possible exception of man-in-the-middle attacks which are incredibly difficult to pull off unless you are a service provider or have access to the wiring closets of your employer. You can read the long history of PPTP VPNs on
Wikipedia for more background. If you’re traveling to China or other democracy-challenged destinations, you probably shouldn’t rely upon PPTP for network security. If these security considerations aren’t applicable in your situation, keep reading because PPTP VPNs are incredibly useful and extremely easy to deploy for an extra layer of VoIP and network security in most countries that have severe wiretapping penalties in place.
PPTP VPNs also provide home-away-from-home transparency to home office network services. Simply stated, with a PPTP VPN, you get a private IP address on the XiVO PBX that lets you do almost anything you could have done sitting at a desk in the home office. There’s more good news. Fifteen years ago, we paid Cisco thousands of dollars for hardware boxes known as PPTP VPN Concentrators. You can still find some of them on
eBay. For history buffs, a little company in California originally built these boxes. I think we paid about $3,000 for them. One year later Cisco bought the company and promptly doubled the price. Today, you can Do It For Free™ using your existing XiVO server platform. Today’s one-minute setup runs circles around the hoops we jumped through 15 years ago to install PPTP VPNs. Once deployed, they revolutionized mobile computing.
PPTP VPNs probably won't work on most OpenVZ platforms such as Wable and ImpactVPS. But they work great on virtual machines such as CloudAtCost and Digital Ocean. For a quick-and-dirty back door into your server, a PPTP VPN is hard to beat. Here's how to set one up on your XiVO PBX using 128-bit encryption. Make up a very obscure username and password in the first two lines below:
Code:
PPTPUSER=somebodyspecial
PPTPPASS=someverysecurepassword
apt-get -y update
apt-get -y install pptpd
sed -i 's|#ms-dns 10.0.0.1|ms-dns 8.8.8.8|' /etc/ppp/pptpd-options
sed -i 's|#ms-dns 10.0.0.2|ms-dns 8.8.4.4|' /etc/ppp/pptpd-options
echo "localip 172.16.16.100" >> /etc/pptpd.conf
echo "remoteip 172.16.16.101-199" >> /etc/pptpd.conf
echo "$PPTPUSER pptpd $PPTPPASS *" >> /etc/ppp/chap-secrets
/etc/init.d/pptpd restart
# show logged in PPTP users
last | grep ppp
Connect to your PPTP server from a
Windows or
Mac in the usual PPTP way. Once connected, you will be assigned an IP address in the range of 172.16.16.101-199. You then can access your XiVO PBX on the following IP address: 172.16.16.100.