SSL, Secure Sockets Layer, isn't just for Web servers any more.

Virtually any Internet connection can be encrypted using SSL, allowing you to secure e-mail, FTP, and other transactions. Best of all, this protection can be applied to your existing services through a mechanism called "SSL Tunneling". SSL Tunneling involves encapsulating a TCP/IP connection in a secure wrapper. As far as the client and server software is concerned, the connection is a normal SMTP, FTP, IMAP, or other protocol transaction. However, the data that moves across the network is actually wrapped in an SSL-encrypted connection.

iAssist makes installing an SSL Tunneling service, called Stunnel, easy, as shown below.

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Once Stunnel has been installed, iAssist allows you to define services to be tunneled. A single secure tunnel installation can provide SSL service for any number of protocols, including Web, E-Mail, FTP, etc. In the example shown here, Stunnel has been configured to provide SSL tunneling for a Web server and a mail server, with access given for both secure SMTP and IMAP.

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Using SSL tunneling is so easy, you may decide to use it instead of the built-in SSL support in Apache for your secure Web site. And if you've ever wished for secure transcations for any Internet service you are responsible for, you'll definitely find it worth your time to take a look at the SSL functions of iAssist.