FreeS/WAN Interoperation with Windows
The good news about FreeS/WAN is that it works well with Windows (particularly Windows 2000/XP, which is shipped with support for the IPsec protocol). The bad news is that it is not a trivial procedure to configure FreeS/WAN under Windows. Still, there are some good documentation sites and utilities that minimize the pain.
Here are the general steps required to set up a secure wireless network with a Windows machine as the client. A Linux box running FreeS/WAN is still the security gateway.
1. Apply an X.509 patch to the FreeS/WAN distribution on the Linux security gateway.
2. Set up a Certificate Authority (CA) on the security gateway (requires OpenSSL).
3. Install a Root certificate on the Linux security gateway.
4. Generate a certificate (in the appropriate format) for the Windows client.
5. Configure FreeS/WAN on the security gateway to use X.509 certificates (generally).
6. Configure FreeS/WAN to reference the certificate for the Windows client.
7. Create an IPSEC and Certificates Microsoft Management Console.
8. Import the generated certificate on the Windows client.
9. Configure Marcus Mueller's IPsec utility for Windows (see http://vpn .ebootis.de/).
10. Establish the IPsec connection from the client to the security gateway.
—M.S.
