ColumnLynx

A VPN Protocol with Simplicity in Focus

ColumnLynx is a basic VPN Protocol started as a learning project, with simplicity as its main design goal.

The "simplicity" part of the design revolves around making it do what VPNs are mainly supposed to provide: An encrypted tunnel between a client and server, providing access to a private LAN via the public internet.

The official design spec of the protocol can be found here.

From the perspective of the ISO/OSI networking model, ColumnLynx is a protocol that controls and operates mainly in the Layer 3 (Network) and Layer 4 (Transport) sections. It tunnels traffic from client to server, via an AES-256 encrypted tunnel, and sends that traffic out of the server under a newly-assigned private IP address.

The official implementation of the protocol is done in C++, although reimplementations in other languages are highly welcome.

Official Git Repository