SoftEther VPN User Forum

Hi,
First of all big thank you to developers for coming up with this Softether VPN server and client software.
I am able to create a server on my Windows 10 pc and establish a connection to it from another Windows 10 PC over the internet.
I choose L2TP over ipsec and set a preshared key.

However when I use the softether client on Windows 10 client pc to make a connection, nowhere I need to enter this key?
If I make a connection using Windows 10 built-in client with L2TP / IPSEC I need to specify the preshared key and then it works.
So how is encryption achieved thru softether client when key is not to be entered at all and all it needs is HUB name, user name and password in Softether client connection?
Am I missing something?
Any clarity shall be great. Thanks in advance. BR John

VPN Protocols Supported by SoftEther VPN Server
SoftEther VPN Protocol (Ethernet over HTTPS)
OpenVPN (L3-mode and L2-mode)
L2TP/IPsec
MS-SSTP (Microsoft Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol)
L2TPv3/IPsec
EtherIP/IPsec

When you use SoftEther VPN Client you need no preshared key because the protocol is totally different to L2TP/IPsec.

Thanks. Got some idea. I however selected L2TP/IPSec in the server config.
I now read some more details here https://www.softether.org/1-features/1. ... nectivity

So just to ask a sub question, does it mean that the Softether client is actually using SoftEther VPN Protocol (Ethernet over HTTPS)?
And how do I check that there's encryption in the protocol used by the softether client?

Yes.

SoftEther VPN Protocol Specification
Upper Underlying Protocol: TLS (Transport Layer Security) 1.0, 1.1, 1.2
Ciphers: RC4-MD5, RC4-SHA, AES128-SHA, AES256-SHA, DES-CBC-SHA and DES-CBC3-SHA
Session-key: 128bit
Based Standards: Extended HTTPS over SSL Protocol (RFC2818, RFC 5246)

In SE client > Properties > Advanced:

Normally the VPN session is encrypted for secure. You can disable encryption to improve the throughput. Please note that the data flows in plain over the network when disabled.
[V] Encrypt VPN Session with SSL

In SE server you can see AES128-SHA as the default cipher.

Doesn't it mean that if a potential attacker “accidentally” (or on purpose) uses the SoftEther Client, they could log in with one less piece of information?