Editing Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (section)

{{short description|Computer network protocol}}
{{IPstack}}
The '''Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol''' ('''PPTP''') is an obsolete method for implementing [[virtual private network]]s. PPTP has many well known security issues.

PPTP uses a [[Transmission Control Protocol|TCP]] control channel and a [[Generic Routing Encapsulation]] tunnel to encapsulate [[Point-to-Point Protocol|PPP]] packets. Many modern VPNs use various forms of [[User Datagram Protocol|UDP]] for this same functionality. 

The PPTP specification does not describe [[encryption]] or [[authentication]] features and relies on the Point-to-Point Protocol being tunneled to implement any and all security functionalities. 

The PPTP implementation that ships with the [[Microsoft Windows]] product families implements various levels of authentication and encryption natively as standard features of the Windows PPTP stack. The intended use of this protocol is to provide security levels and remote access levels comparable with typical [[Virtual private network|VPN]] products.