How do I configure a Netgear FVS336g for use with Amazon VPC?

Question

I think it should be possible to create an IPSec tunnel between a Netgear FVS336Gv2 firewall/router and AWS VPC however, I've been unable after several tries. How do I setup a connection for a Amazon VPC?

Answer 1

Update

AWS has just dropped the requirement to establish Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) peerings in order to use the built in VPN connectivity to an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), see Amazon VPC - Additional VPN Features:

You can now create Hardware VPN connections to your VPC using static routing. This means that you can establish connectivity using VPN devices that do not support BGP such as Cisco ASA and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. You can also use Linux to establish a Hardware VPN connection to your VPC. In fact, any IPSec VPN implementation should work. [emphasis mine]

The outlined reason for this change specifically highlights BGP as a previous barrier to adoption of this otherwise very appealing VPN connectivity to a VPC:

First, BGP can be difficult to set up and to manage, [...]. Second, some firewalls and entry-level routers support IPSec but not BGP. These devices are very popular in corporate branch offices. As I mentioned above, this change dramatically increases the number of VPN devices that can be used to connect to a VPC. [...]

I couldn't agree more - consequently you might be able to establish an IPSec tunnel between your Netgear FVS336Gv2 firewall/router and an AWS VPC now:

We have tested the static routing "No BGP" option with devices from Cisco, Juniper, Yamaha, Netgear, and Microsoft. [emphasis mine]

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Initial Answer

I doubt that the Netgear FVS336Gv2 will work with the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), insofar it is neither mentioned in Customer Gateway Devices We've Tested, nor completely fulfills the respective Requirements for Your Customer Gateway - in particular, Amazon VPC requires support for establishing Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) peerings:

BGP is used to exchange routes between the customer gateway and virtual private gateway. All BGP traffic is encrypted and transmitted via the IPsec Security Association. BGP is required for both gateways to exchange the IP prefixes reachable via the IPsec SA.

Unfortunately, BGP is not implemented in many consumer-level VPN devices, thus requires respective professional hardware or software VPN appliances - the Netgear FVS336Gv2 doesn't seem to be an exception here, at least BGP isn't listed in the product specification (see tab Product Specs on its product page).