Re: [Openvpn-als-devel] [Openvpn-als-user] Future of Adito/OpenVPN ALS

[<sam...@gm...>]

Hi Russell,

Simple SSL tunnels using the Agent are really useful and much more
user-friendly than use of SSH + port forwarding. In fact, I read and
documented (see javadocs in "nonembedded") the client part of the Agent
pretty thoroughly a few months ago. It was pretty nice code with
separate threads for heartbeat and similar. From what I learned it
should be possible to write a replacement for the server component.
There did not seem to be anything Java-specific (e.g. RMI, object
streaming) in the client-side Agent implementation, so  the server part
could be written in any language. That said it might be just as easy to
start from scratch, perhaps borrowing some ideas from the Agent.

So there are several alternatives and lots of building blocks that could
be used in a community-driven ALS replacement. If the amount of code is
kept to the minimum by reusing existing components, the replacement
might even be sustainable as a community-driven project. Something that
would combine network-layer connetivity (e.g. OpenVPN), a reverse proxy
and application-level tunneling would be pretty neat indeed.

Samuli

> Hi,
> 
>  
> 
> I agree with many of the comments posted so far, and in particular the
> note from Sammuli about the barrier to entry with the current SW - I
> tried to help fix some bugs, but it really is hard to find a way through
> the current code ... :-(. I forsee this going downhill unfortunately,
> but I do see a few advantages to OpenVPN-ALS also ...
> 
>  
> 
> - configuration: for basic usage, setting up port forwarding for a few
> ports is easier than the network configuration that has to be done with
> OpenVPN
> 
> - distro compatibility: I am running SuSE (for HW compatibiltiy reasons,
> no other distro would install on my old HW) ... but OpenVPN Access
> Server is not available on this platform (however OpenVPN-ALS runs on
> basically any platform).
> 
> - VPN-over-VPN: I am unable to get OpenVPN working over top of a (Cisco)
> VPN link, but OpenVPN-ALS works just fine (because it provides local
> port access).
> 
>  
> 
> So it is too bad to see OpenVPN-ALS go this way - it definitely has some
> advantages (for me, and I'm sure other users).
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 07:11 AM, ko...@us... wrote:
> 
>     On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 12:23:03PM +0200, Arne Morten Johansen wrote:
>     > That being said, I think it's sad that the project is fading away.
>     > Commercial alternatives are so expensive. Like $100-200 per user.
>     Sadly our
>     > economic situation is not so good that we can afford to support this
>     > project, then it would just be cheaper to go commercial. I think a
>     project
>     > of this magnitude needs at least $150 000 to get started again and
>     attract
>     > new developers.
> 
>     Good mail from Samuli. I were interrested about contributing adito some
>     time ago. But when I dig deeper into source I did find same problems.
> 
>     Most discouraging experience were when I was studying Erlang programming
>     language same time with Adito and found out how easily same problems
>     could be solved with Erlang.
> 
>     Actually I think that Nortel built their own similar solution top of
>     Erlang
>     OS web server called YAWS (http://yaws.hyber.org/contribs.yaws
>     <http://server:8080/redir.hsp?url=%68%74%74%70%3A%2F%2F%79%61%77%73%2E%68%79%62%65%72%2E%6F%72%67%2F%63%6F%6E%74%72%69%62%73%2E%79%61%77%73>).
> 
>     YAWS has ssl support, integrated json support and
>     Linux-PAM authentication - so it supports any authentication Linux
>     supports.
> 
>     I did check out YAWS source code and found out that turning it to
>     Adito replacement would be quite simple (at least when comparing to JEE
>     solution). Actually there is already yaws_revproxy.erl module in
>     YAWS git tree. As usual nice gui would be the biggest job. Agent of
>     course
>     needs to stay JAVA.
> 
>     So I am happy about Samuli's new job and agree with his opinnions, but
>     maybe questioning Arne's view about 'project magnitude' :)
> 
>     (Not that I am going to start such Erlang project, just being smart
>     ass and
>     sharing my findings.)
> 
>     -kontro-
> 
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
>     Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
>     proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
>     See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
>     http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev
>     <http://server:8080/redir.hsp?url=%68%74%74%70%3A%2F%2F%70%2E%73%66%2E%6E%65%74%2F%73%66%75%2F%69%6E%74%65%6C%2D%73%77%2D%64%65%76>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Openvpn-als-devel mailing list
>     Ope...@li...
>     <mailto:Ope...@li...>
>     https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/openvpn-als-devel
>     <http://server:8080/redir.hsp?url=%68%74%74%70%73%3A%2F%2F%6C%69%73%74%73%2E%73%6F%75%72%63%65%66%6F%72%67%65%2E%6E%65%74%2F%6C%69%73%74%73%2F%6C%69%73%74%69%6E%66%6F%2F%6F%70%65%6E%76%70%6E%2D%61%6C%73%2D%64%65%76%65%6C>
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
> Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
> proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
> See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Openvpn-als-devel mailing list
> Ope...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/openvpn-als-devel