Astaro supports 3DES, which is DES triple encoded using three different keys. People stopped using single DES encryption years ago, since it is not secure.
Thanks for replays. I have to create connection with a server behind some hardware that supports only DES. I understand security reasons not to use DES, but situation is not so bad. It is local network, between two departments via ISP, but not via public internet. They are going to upgrade the hardware, but it takes some time. So I would like to ask my question about DES again - is it possible?
even though it is not recommended, it is possible to use DES in ASL version 5. There is no default policy defined for DES, but you can easily create one in WebAdmin.
It is important to remember here that with encryption there is no best or totally proven solution. DES has been shown many years ago to be too short a key length for brute force attacks, so people started using 3DES which is still beyond the capability of modern CPUs to break in a reasonable period of time (under 10 years of processing). The important factor here is that these algorithms cannot be broken in a way which is significantly faster than trying every key exhaustively. There are some attempts at crypto-analysis of 3DES which slightly reduces the time to break the key, but only very slightly.
AES is a more modern algorithm which is faster and more suitable for modern processors. It puts less load on your CPU than 3DES. However it has not been around as long as 3DES and so has been less tested in the field. On the other hand, a lot of people are using it. Blowfish has been around for even less time, and it is used much less often. There are no known attacks against it, but that doesn't mean it isn't vulnerable.
For further reading I highly recommend Bruce Schneider's book and his web site www.counterpane.com.
