VPN – DEVOPS DONE RIGHT

Split Tunneling Using OpenVPN

While working with a client, we needed to be connected with VPN all the time, it is when we noticed there was always a delay in response when browsing the internet on my system because all the traffic was going through a VPN tunnel to the VPN server located in the far region and this was the case for every employee working for that client. So, what is the solution for this if you are a cost-conscious company? You want minimal use of resources and improve overall network performance. You do split-tunneling, which we will be discussing in this blog, and how you can achieve it.

What is Split tunneling?

Split Tunneling is a powerful feature in OpenVPN that allows clients to decide which traffic should be sent through the VPN tunnel and which traffic should be sent directly to the Internet. This means that the client can choose to route only specific traffic through the VPN, such as traffic destined for a corporate network, while allowing other traffic to bypass the VPN. This can be useful for increasing the speed and reliability of internet access for certain types of traffic, and for conserving bandwidth on the VPN server.

The Step-By-Step Guide to Connect Aws with Azure

As we all know AWS and Azure are the two Cloud providers and there can be possibilities that one of our services is running on one cloud provider and the other is running on another cloud provider and, both are dependent on each other.

Through this blog, I will guide you on the steps which will be needed for connecting AWS with Azure and also will be explaining all the components of both the cloud provider that will be required for creating the site-to-site VPN Connectivity.

Why are we trying to connect both?

In one of my projects, I met with a requirement where I was working on an application that follows a client-server architecture. There were servers connected to multiple clients. Initially, the Server was placed into AWS and the connected clients were also there, but after a couple of years our requirements got changed and a new business unit came into the picture with its own clients that were needed to be connected with the server present in the AWS cloud.

Now, these new clients were present on Azure but the server was on AWS. Migration of server was not an option for us because our customer was not ready to migrate those clients from Azure to AWS, so this was a completely new use case, to which we decided to connect both the cloud providers with each other by setting up IPSec VPN tunnel.

VPN Services Comparison- How to find the best VPN for your business?

VPNs are a great way to securely connect your private networks. They are even used to mask your public IP, so that you can access a public server without getting traced. There are a number of VPN offerings in the market ranging from open-source to proprietary software, self-managed to VPN-as-a-service, and with a huge range of features.

I recently got an assignment to get the best offering in the market. Best is a vague term. An Open-source VPN covering all the basic functionalities can be best for a simple implementation . Or a proprietary VPN having a lot of simplicity and customisation can be best for a medium or high budget implementation. So, I decided to compare different offerings in the market. Complete open-source VPNs are out of the scope.

Here are the things I kept in my mind before starting:

That’s Why Iptable Is Not A Good Fit For Domain Name?

Context

Let’s first talk about how it all started with and what we achieved.

It’s all started with a healthy discussion with a team where our team members were discussing many aspects of different fields of technology. So, one of our colleagues mentioned OpenVPN. So, we discussed the different working field, architecture, workflow of OpenVPN, in which role of iptables comes into the picture because for Linux architecture, OpenVPN support iptables as it’s primary firewall utility or can say OpenVPN support iptables as it’s a firewall for filtering workflow.

So in-between discussion, I mentioned that I am using iptables in OpenVPN to block traffic for the domain name and it is working fine. So, my colleague asked me about how you implemented & how is it possible to use iptables for domain and they discussed multiple logical explanations like OSI layer support and many other things. So, we decided to do POC of this discussion and try to write-up some blog or points to make clear that is it possible use iptables for the domain name and if not, what are the area that we can cover with iptables for the domain name and try to cover up flaws of this. Continue reading