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Creating secure wireless access points with OpenBSD and OpenVPN |
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Source: NewsForge - Posted by Pax Dickinson
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You know how insecure 802.11x wireless networks are. In this article we'll create an OpenBSD-based secure wireless access point that prevents unauthorized access and encrypts every packet using a VPN tunnel. OpenBSD is one of the most secure operating systems available, is easy to use, and includes almost everything you need for this project in the base installation.
If you are new to OpenBSD, consider reading our review of 3.8, as well as the project's Web site. The same goes for OpenVPN, and check out our recent article too.
OpenBSD supports a wide range of hardware platforms. You don't really need a behemoth for this project; my access point/router runs quite happily on a 166MHz Pentium. A quiet, low-power embedded board such as one from Soekris or the PC Engines WRAP works well. However, if you expect to have lots of clients connected at the same time, consider using a more powerful CPU or a crypto-accelerator card like the ones built by Soekris.
For the wireless part you can either use a wireless adapter support by OpenBSD and have your box run as the actual access point -- which I recommend -- or use a regular access point connected via a crossover UTP cable to an Ethernet interface on the box. If you choose the latter course, keep in mind that most hardware access points use unencrypted Web-based administration interfaces and thus might be vulnerable to attacks.
Read this full article at NewsForge
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