Yoggie Management Server and Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro

There is no escaping the fact that any network activity brings risk. Even connecting through the company network to the outside world carries some risk of infection with malware, spyware or virus. This risk is exacerbated when the computer in question is either a laptop or a home computer used by an employee to access corporate resources.

Despite the vast investment by IT departments in security products for laptops and home workers maintaining a common standard of security is not easy. Part of the problem is the inherent complexity of security products, especially Virtual Private Network (VPN) products. When things go wrong they take a lot of support yet without them, allowing users to access the corporate network is a risk.

There is another problem that affects these two groups of computers. They are no longer connecting to a network that is under the control of the IT department. This opens up the risk of attack via the networks that they use for connection to the internet. Applying and managing a consistent set of security rules can be extremely difficult. Without consistency, especially for mobile users, security is easily compromised.

Yoggie Security Systems believes it has the solution. Most solutions install software on the remote computers which can be infected, attacked and potentially compromised without being detected. Yoggie uses a two part hardware solution security solution (client and management server) that can be used to create and deploy rules as well as force all network connections to go through their device.

For this review we looked at the Yoggie Management Server (YMS) and Yoggie Gatekeeper Pro (YGP) products as a combined solution. The new Yoggie Pico Pro (YPP) USB device did not ship during the review. When the YPP does ship it will come in at just £105 with a yearly software licence of £21.

So how does it do?

The YMS is a rack mount device that uses a hardened Linux distribution as the operating system. We were sent one of the first units they had available and it arrived with a power adapter. There was a single sheet describing initial setup and that was it. Yoggie are still in the process of finalising their user guide and that will eventually be supplied via a CD in the box.

The YGP is the client side unit. It is a small hardware unit, about the same size as a mobile phone (just a little thicker at the base) that comes with a built in USB connector. There is a separate Ethernet cable for connecting it to the computer if you don't want to go via USB. A Software and Driver CD also contains the manual which is provided in printed form along with a quick start guide.

Installing the YMS gave us a little trouble. There are two ways of connecting to the YMS in order to do the initial configuration, either using a crossed network cable or via the network. Connection must be done through the LAN1 port and we could not get the YMS to recognise the laptop we were using.

After changing the network cables and resetting the YMS several times, we finally managed to get a connection although it took a while for the YMS to recognise the device. Once we had achieved a direct connection, it was possible to switch to a network connection. It seemed that the YMS just needed to wake up and talk to us.

Once connected, you need to allocate the YMS an IP address. This can be either via DHCP or a fixed IP address. This is a security appliance so allocating it a fixed IP address is the most sensible approach. You must keep a careful note of the IP address as the YMS hides its IP address from other devices. You should also change the default password.