Chapter 6. Fundamentals of IP Security

This chapter covers the following topics:

IPsec concepts, components, and operations

Configuring and verifying IPsec

IP Security (IPsec) is one of the most mature VPN standards in the industry. The secret of IPsec is that it is not locked in to one specific protocol or even one set of protocols. As technology advances, so can the protocols that are being used by IPsec. The goal of IPsec is quite simple: to provide confidentiality, data integrity, and authentication of the virtual private network (VPN) peer and provide antireplay support. It implements all of these to Layer 3 packets individually, protecting each one as it is sent from one end of the VPN tunnel until it reaches the other end.

This chapter presumes that you have read the previous chapters, and we build based on that.