参考http://www.unix.org.ua/orelly/networking_2ndEd/fire/ch14_12.htm
14.12. Layer 2 Transport Protocol (L2TP)
The Layer 2 Transport Protocol (L2TP) is another generic encapsulation protocol designed to allow you to tunnel IP networking. Like PPTP, it is an extension of PPP. There are two main differences between PPTP and L2TP. First, PPTP always runs on top of IP; it requires that you have an IP connection of some sort. L2TP can run over a number of different protocols, including directly over a phone line (like PPP). Second, PPTP is an encrypted protocol; it encrypts everything except for the initial negotiations. L2TP is not an encrypted protocol; it does not encrypt message bodies. On the other hand, L2TP does do mutual authentication for the initial negotiations and is capable of concealing the information in the initial negotiations.
L2TP is normally used in conjunction with IPsec, so that IPsec can provide the encryption. This results in a heavily layered protocol stack. shows the layers of encapsulation involved in sending a TCP packet via LT2P securely over an IP network.