VPN policies

At one point, if you wanted to have secure digital communications between 2 points a private network would be created. This network would only allow the people that were intended to get the communications on it. This is very straightforward if the 2 points are in the same room or even in the same building. It can all be done physically. If you are supposed to be on the secure network

VPNs are an answer to one of today’s biggest concerns, how to make digital communications secure between to points that must communicate over the Internet which anybody can have access to.

There are two types of VPNs supported by FortiOS, SSL and IPsec. They are differentiated by the security protocol suites that are used to secure the traffic. These are both described in more detail in the VPN section, but the IPsec VPN can be configured as an Action with a firewall policy.

IPsec policies

IPsec policies allow IPsec VPN traffic access to the internal network from a remote location. These policies include authentication information that authenticates users and user group or groups. These policies specify the following:

• the FortiGate firewall interface that provides the physical connection to the remote VPN gateway, usually an interface connected to the Internet
• the FortiGate firewall interface that connects to the private network l IP addresses associated with data that has to be encrypted and decrypted l optional: a schedule that restricts when the VPN can operate, and services (or types of data) that can be sent.

For a route-based (interface mode) VPN, you do not configure an IPsec security policy. Instead, you configure two regular ACCEPT security policies, one for each direction of communication, with the IPsec virtual interface as the source or destination interface, as appropriate.