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Using VPN technology to remove physical barriers in linux lab experiments

Published: 18 October 2007 Publication History

Abstract

The ability for students to perform computer laboratory experiments has traditionally been limited to a physical environment. Because of this restriction, lab experiments could be performed only during formal lab hours or open lab time. There are a number of negative consequences resulting from physical barriers, including administrative issues involving lab equipment and room support costs, and site access on weekends and after-hours. Student limitations involve inflexible lab room schedules, sometimes insufficient equipment, and possible late-night safety concerns.
Recently we adopted an open source VPN solution that uses Openswan and the IPSec sub-system. This open source technology allows student computers to connect to the private lab LAN and perform experiments from home or the dorm, at any time of the day, night, or weekend. Based on student feedback and improved technologies, the solution was enhanced, expanded, and made more flexible. A locally developed and copyrighted software application, code name BroadReach, simplifies student VPN configuration and management of the VPN Gateway to the secure LAN and is discussed in this paper. Issues related to IPSec are identified and both industry and local solutions are presented. Finally, the future migration of a DE classroom into a single computer using Virtualization techniques is outlined.

References

[1]
https://www.redhat.com/training/academy/.
[2]
http://author.ecu.edu/cs-itcs/act/ace/requirements.cfm
[3]
http://www.openswan.org/
[4]
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4301
[5]
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4303.txt
[6]
http://www.iana.org/assignments/protocol-numbers
[7]
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3715
[8]
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3947.txt
[9]
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3948.txt
[10]
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4306.txt
[11]
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man5/ipsec.conf.5.html
[12]
http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man8/ipsec_pluto.8.html
[13]
http://www.vmware.com/

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGITE '07: Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education
    October 2007
    284 pages
    ISBN:9781595939203
    DOI:10.1145/1324302
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Publication History

    Published: 18 October 2007

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    Author Tags

    1. distance education computer labs
    2. linux operating system
    3. openSwan VPN
    4. secure remote labs

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