Droid X: The Missing Manual

Virtual Private Networking (VPN)

If your company has a VPN, you’ll need to connect using it to do things like check your email. Check with the IT staff. If your company has a VPN, and if you’re permitted to use it, they’ll give you the information that lets your Droid X connect to the corporate network over the VPN. They’ll also set up an account for you.

Here’s what you’ll need to set up your Droid X to access the VPN:

• The type of technology it uses. The Droid X can work with pretty much any kind of VPN technology out there. Ask whether yours uses PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol), L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol), L2TP/IPSec PSK (pre-shared, key-based Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol over the IP Security Protocol), or L2TP/IPSec CRT (certificate-based Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol over the IP Security Protocol). (You don’t have to memorize these terms. There’s no quiz later.)

• Address of the VPN server. The Internet address of the server to which you need to connect, such as vpn.bigsecurehoncho.com.

• Name of the VPN server. The name isn’t always needed, but check, just in case.

• Account name and password. The IT folks will supply you with this.

• Secret. When it comes to VPNs, there are secrets within secrets. If you use a L2TP connection, you’ll need a password called a Shared Secret in addition to your own password in order to connect.

• Other special keys. Depending on which VPN protocol you use, you may require additional keys, which are essentially passwords. Again, the IT folks will know ...