I use VPN quite often in public places where I don\'t want anyone to read my web
ID: 661956 • Letter: I
Question
I use VPN quite often in public places where I don't want anyone to read my web traffic. However, some public places have firewalls that block ports required to establish a VPN connection (I usually use PPTP). I don't think some public places (especially my school) really distinguish between a VPN connection and HTTP(S) connections. They just block some ports (I think my school is blocking every port except 80, yes even HTTPS!, but I'm not quite sure.).
So I wonder if I can bypass the firewall (maybe by using another port). I can even change the protocol if necessary.
I already use port 80, and 443 for apache and 20, 21, and 22 for FTP, SFTP and SSH on my VPN server. I can use as many domains as necessary but I only have one IP address. Can configure my server so that it uses port 80 for apache if the requests comes from a specific domain and uses port 80 for my VPN server if it comes from another domain.
The Server is running on Mac OS X Mavericks (a UNIX system) using Mac Server 3.
Explanation / Answer
There are four main types of VPN - PPTP, L2TP over IPSec, IPSec aka. Cisco IPSec and SSL. As you have stated your IT department appears to be blocking the first three types.
However SSL VPN connections look to your network just like any other SSL traffic and as SSL is used to access secure websites it generally cannot be blocked over zealous network admins.
Therefore you need to look at setting up a SSL VPN system instead.
Note: You cannot use the built-in Apple VPN client to connect to an SSL VPN server. Generally the SSL 'client' is either a Java application or provided by the maker of the SSL VPN server, e.g. Cisco, SonicWALL, Juniper, etc.