VPN servers and clients 1

[TimRegester]

I have a client who has a requirement for a VPN into his office from a remote worker.

The clients LAN sits behind an existing firewall off a T1. The remote worker has VPN.

I have torn many hairs out trying to get some solutions, but the solution must be cheap, i.e. under 500GBP excluding labour.

I immediately thought PIX but found that cisco pix 500 series firewalls appear according to the data on their website to be incapable of being VPN servers, is this right or merely a reflection of cisco targetting branch offices?

So I looked at Watchguard and the SOHO 6tc but seem unable to find anything beyond it being used as a hardware vpn client or tunnel endpoint. Calling Watchguard was a frustrating experience as noone seemed to be able to answer technical questions after two calls.

I am running out of ideas, any suggestions?

 

[themut]

The PIX 501 is able to act as a VPN headend device for VPN clients. You can also configure a site-to-site VPN with the PIX 501. It works flawlessly and it is rather simple to configure.

 

[TimRegester]

Thanks plus I know my way round PIX and IOS. Better the devil you know than the devil who cannot be asked to answer your calls.

 

[themut]

The link below is great guideline configuring the PIX as a headend device for VPN clients:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk583/tk372/technologies_configuration_example09186a008009442e.shtml

 

[Castor66]

A Sonicwall TZ170 does the job fine as well and that's only a couple of hundred. Here is the quote I placed an order on last year:

TZ170, SonicWALL TZ 170 10 Node,. Cost £290.00
TZ170, SonicWALL TZ 170 10 Node 8x5 support, Cost £65.00
Total, £355.00 ex. VAT.

Nice simple GUI.

 

[munkee35]

We use a watchguard SOHOtc firewall for our network. This allows VPN connections using a remote access software and once learnt, is easy to set up. The number of remote connections is licenced, but u can set up say 10 users and only pay for 5 connections as it will not allow over your alloted amount.

The VPN software also comes with a bundled copy of the free zonealarm but this can cause issues, so its best to use the unbundled (lite) copy.

 

[TimRegester]

Thanks for your reply munkee35 as luck would have it I have just had a conference call with a third party and so now have the go-ahead to proceed on this.

Thanks for your input

Tim