NAT Traversal ( RFC & Draft 00-04 versions )Īdvanced Configuration Exchange AttributesĪlthough the VPN Client supports a rapidly growing feature set, it still lacks some options found in the popular commercial solutions. Please read below for a complete list of supported features.ġ. In addition, it includes support for the XAuth protocol extension for user authentication and the Configuration Exchange extension for automatic client configuration.
This Software implements the IPsec Protocol standard and uses ISAKMP version 1.0 to negotiate security parameters with a VPN Gateway.
The Shrew Soft Client for Windows is free for both commercial and private use. The Shrew Soft VPN Client offers a complimentary Windows IPsec implementation that can be used to communicate with these gateways. Recent improvements to the IPsec Tools software and added kernel support for features such as NAT Traversal have enabled open source operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD to be considered as a viable alternative to expensive commercial VPN Gateway solutions. While most major open source operating systems have had support for basic IPsec functionality for some time, they have lacked a sophisticated IKE daemon and kernel support for protocol extensions that would be required to properly support IPsec Client connectivity. Most of these products are bundled with proprietary VPN Client software that is designed to communicate with a specific gateway device. Many commercial VPN Gateways are available on the market. This functionality is provided by implementing the IPsec Protocol standard which is used by a wide variety of both commercial and open source operating systems. It now offers many of the advanced features only found in expensive commercial software solutions and provides compatibility for VPN appliances produced by vendors such as Cisco, Juniper, Checkpoint, Fortinet, Netgear, Linksys, Zywall and many others.īy tunneling traffic between the VPN Client and the VPN Gateway, the host is able to access private network resources in a manner which is secure even when connecting from an insecure public network. It was originally developed to provide secure communications between mobile Windows hosts and open source VPN gateways that utilize standards compliant software such as ipsec-tools, OpenSWAN, FreeSWAN, StrongSWAN, isakmpd. Shrew Soft VPN Client is a free IPsec Remote Access VPN Client for Windows operating systems ( x86 and amd64 versions ).