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vpnd(8)                   BSD System Manager's Manual                  vpnd(8)

NAME
     vpnd -- Mac OS X VPN service daemon

SYNOPSIS
     vpnd [-d | -n | -x] [-i server_id]
     vpnd [-h]


DESCRIPTION
     vpnd allows external hosts to tunnel via L2TP over IPSec or via PPTP from an insecure external network
     (such as the Internet) into a "secure" internal network, such as a corporate network.  All traffic
     through the tunnel is encrypted to provide secure communications, with L2TP/IPSec providing a higher
     level of security than PPTP.

     vpnd listens for incoming connections, pairs each one with an available internal IP address, and passes
     the connection to pppd(8) with appropriate parameters.  Parameters for vpnd are specified in a system
     configuration (plist) file in XML format.  This file contains a dictionary of configurations each iden-tified identified
     tified by a key referred to as a server_id.  Parameters include the tunneling protocol, IP addresses to
     be assigned to clients, PPP parameters etc.

     vpnd is launched for a particular configuration by using the -i option which takes the server_id to be
     run as an argument.  vpnd can also be run without the -i option.  In this case it will check the con-figuration configuration
     figuration file for a special array which contains a list of configurations to be run and will fork and
     exec a copy of vpnd for each server_id to be run.  Running multiple vpnd processes simultaneously for a
     particular protocol is not allowed.

     vpnd will be launched during the boot process by a startup item if the field VPNSERVER is defined in
     /etc/hostconfig with the value -YES-.  Typically, in this case it will be launched without the -i
     option and will check the configuration file to determine which configuration(s) are to be run.

     vpnd logs items of interest to the system log.  A different log path can be specified in the configura-tion configuration
     tion file.


OPTIONS
     The following options are available:

     -d    Do not move to background and print log strings to the terminal.

     -h    Print usage summary and exit.

     -i    Server_id in the plist file that defines the configuration to be run.

     -n    Do not move to background, print log information to the terminal, and quit after validating the
           argument list.

     -x    Do not move to background.


EXAMPLES
     The default invocation,

           vpnd

     will read the list of configurations to run from the configuration file and launch them.  This default
     configuration may be enabled at startup by defining VPNSERVER to -YES-.

     To specify a particular configuration to run use

           vpnd -i server_id


FILES & FOLDERS
     /usr/sbin/vpnd
     /etc/hostconfig
     /System/Library/StartupItems/NetworkExtensions


SEE ALSO
     pppd(8)

Mac OS X                        21 August 2003                        Mac OS X