Now – if you are having free time and wonder what to do you can certainly try to setup an OpenVPN server on a Windows machine… To save you some time / may be 🙂 / and to keep some record of what I have done – I am writing this quick article.
For a general idea on the subject and easy to follow guide to OpenVPN general setup and creation of the certificates you can read here:
https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/Easy_Windows_Guide
Do not forget to run the installer as administrator on both client and server PC.
After this, as I am sure you will encounter some difficulties with the communication between your devices. Before testing any setups make sure windows firewall is off, this will save you a lot of frustration. Please read this article and decide for yourself what you are going to use/need from it:
http://blog.defron.org/2013/01/openvpn-server-on-windows.html
In my case I did not want all the traffic to be redirected through the VPN, so I left alone the option push “redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp”. On my server configuration I had to have client-to-client and topology subnet options and float on the client configuration to have a successful ping between the client and the server. Also I changed the registry value of IPEnableRouter in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters from 0 to 1 on both client and server.
I did not try the
push “route-metric 512”
push “route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0”
trickery to sort the windows firewall issue as I did not wanted more mess in my already messy routing tables… 🙂 Instead I decided that I can live with the firewall disabled on the TAP interface only. Probably better solution – have a third party firewall on and the windows one off, now days all the bloated antivirus software comes with firewall built in.
Below are my client and server configuration files, might be useful. Good luck!
##################SERVER###########################
# Sample OpenVPN 2.0 config file for #
# multi-client server. #
# #
# This file is for the server side #
# of a many-clients <-> one-server #
# OpenVPN configuration. #
# #
# OpenVPN also supports #
# single-machine <-> single-machine #
# configurations (See the Examples page #
# on the web site for more info). #
# #
# This config should work on Windows #
# or Linux/BSD systems. Remember on #
# Windows to quote pathnames and use #
# double backslashes, e.g.: #
# “C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\foo.key” #
# #
# Comments are preceded with ‘#’ or ‘;’ #
#################################################
# Which TCP/UDP port should OpenVPN listen on?
# If you want to run multiple OpenVPN instances
# on the same machine, use a different port
# number for each one. You will need to
# open up this port on your firewall.
port 11194
# TCP or UDP server?
proto tcp
;proto udp
# “dev tun” will create a routed IP tunnel,
# “dev tap” will create an ethernet tunnel.
# Use “dev tap0” if you are ethernet bridging
# and have precreated a tap0 virtual interface
# and bridged it with your ethernet interface.
# If you want to control access policies
# over the VPN, you must create firewall
# rules for the the TUN/TAP interface.
# On non-Windows systems, you can give
# an explicit unit number, such as tun0.
# On Windows, use “dev-node” for this.
# On most systems, the VPN will not function
# unless you partially or fully disable
# the firewall for the TUN/TAP interface.
;dev tap
dev tun
# SSL/TLS root certificate (ca), certificate
# (cert), and private key (key). Each client
# and the server must have their own cert and
# key file. The server and all clients will
# use the same ca file.
#
# See the “easy-rsa” directory for a series
# of scripts for generating RSA certificates
# and private keys. Remember to use
# a unique Common Name for the server
# and each of the client certificates.
#
# Any X509 key management system can be used.
# OpenVPN can also use a PKCS #12 formatted key file
# (see “pkcs12” directive in man page).
ca “C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\ca.crt”
cert “C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\server.crt”
key “C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\server.key” # This file should be kept secret
# Diffie hellman parameters.
# Generate your own with:
# openssl dhparam -out dh2048.pem 2048
dh “C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\dh2048.pem”
# Network topology
# Should be subnet (addressing via IP)
# unless Windows clients v2.0.9 and lower have to
# be supported (then net30, i.e. a /30 per client)
# Defaults to net30 (not recommended)
topology subnet
# Configure server mode and supply a VPN subnet
# for OpenVPN to draw client addresses from.
# The server will take 10.8.0.1 for itself,
# the rest will be made available to clients.
# Each client will be able to reach the server
# on 10.8.0.1. Comment this line out if you are
# ethernet bridging. See the man page for more info.
server 192.168.20.0 255.255.255.0
# Maintain a record of client <-> virtual IP address
# associations in this file. If OpenVPN goes down or
# is restarted, reconnecting clients can be assigned
# the same virtual IP address from the pool that was
# previously assigned.
ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt
# Uncomment this directive to allow different
# clients to be able to “see” each other.
# By default, clients will only see the server.
# To force clients to only see the server, you
# will also need to appropriately firewall the
# server’s TUN/TAP interface.
client-to-client
# The keepalive directive causes ping-like
# messages to be sent back and forth over
# the link so that each side knows when
# the other side has gone down.
# Ping every 10 seconds, assume that remote
# peer is down if no ping received during
# a 120 second time period.
keepalive 10 120
# Enable compression on the VPN link.
# If you enable it here, you must also
# enable it in the client config file.
comp-lzo
# The persist options will try to avoid
# accessing certain resources on restart
# that may no longer be accessible because
# of the privilege downgrade.
persist-key
persist-tun
# Output a short status file showing
# current connections, truncated
# and rewritten every minute.
status openvpn-status.log
# Set the appropriate level of log
# file verbosity.
#
# 0 is silent, except for fatal errors
# 4 is reasonable for general usage
# 5 and 6 can help to debug connection problems
# 9 is extremely verbose
verb 3
##################CLIENT########################
# Sample client-side OpenVPN 2.0 config file #
# for connecting to multi-client server. #
# #
# This configuration can be used by multiple #
# clients, however each client should have #
# its own cert and key files. #
# #
# On Windows, you might want to rename this #
# file so it has a .ovpn extension #
##############################################
# Specify that we are a client and that we
# will be pulling certain config file directives
# from the server.
client
# Use the same setting as you are using on
# the server.
# On most systems, the VPN will not function
# unless you partially or fully disable
# the firewall for the TUN/TAP interface.
;dev tap
dev tun
# Are we connecting to a TCP or
# UDP server? Use the same setting as
# on the server.
proto tcp
;proto udp
# The hostname/IP and port of the server.
# You can have multiple remote entries
# to load balance between the servers.
remote your.server.net 11194
;remote my-server-2 1194
# Keep trying indefinitely to resolve the
# host name of the OpenVPN server. Very useful
# on machines which are not permanently connected
# to the internet such as laptops.
resolv-retry infinite
# Most clients don’t need to bind to
# a specific local port number.
nobind
# Try to preserve some state across restarts.
persist-key
persist-tun
# SSL/TLS parms.
# See the server config file for more
# description. It’s best to use
# a separate .crt/.key file pair
# for each client. A single ca
# file can be used for all clients.
ca “C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\ca.crt”
cert “C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\CLIENT.crt”
key “C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\CLIENT.key”
# Verify server certificate by checking that the
# certicate has the correct key usage set.
# This is an important precaution to protect against
# a potential attack discussed here:
# http://openvpn.net/howto.html#mitm
#
# To use this feature, you will need to generate
# your server certificates with the keyUsage set to
# digitalSignature, keyEncipherment
# and the extendedKeyUsage to
# serverAuth
# EasyRSA can do this for you.
remote-cert-tls server
# Enable compression on the VPN link.
# Don’t enable this unless it is also
# enabled in the server config file.
comp-lzo
# Set log file verbosity.
verb 3
float
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