Setting up an OpenVPN server in Fedora 7

Setting up an OpenVPN server

1. yum install openvpn.$HOSTTYPE

2. Copy /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa/ somewhere (like root's home directory with cp -ai /usr/share/openvpn/easy-rsa ~).

3. cd ~/easy-rsa

4. Edit vars appropriately.

5. . vars

6. ./clean-all

7. Before continuing, make sure the system time is correct. Preferably, set up NTP.

8. ./build-ca

9. ./build-inter $( hostname | cut -d. -f1 )

10. ./build-dh

11. mkdir /etc/openvpn/keys

12. cp -ai keys/$( hostname | cut -d. -f1 ).{crt,key} keys/ca.crt keys/dh1024.pem /etc/openvpn/keys/

13. cp -ai /usr/share/doc/openvpn-*/sample-config-files/roadwarrior-server.conf /etc/openvpn/server.conf

14. Edit /etc/openvpn/server.conf appropriately.

15. chkconfig --level 2345 openvpn on

16. service openvpn start

17. Verify that firewall rules allow traffic in from tun+, out from the LAN to tun+, and in from the outside on UDP port 1194. The following should work:

     iptables -A INPUT -i eth1 -p udp --dport 1194 -j ACCEPT
     iptables -A INPUT -i tun+ -j ACCEPT
     iptables -A FORWARD -i tun+ -j ACCEPT
     iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o tun+ -j ACCEPT
     iptables -A FORWARD -i eth1 -o tun+ -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
    

    Or for genfw (my firewall-generation script, not currently available in Fedora), this in /etc/sysconfig/genfw/rules:

     append INPUT -i eth1 -p udp --dport 1194 -j ACCEPT
     append INPUT -i tun+ -j ACCEPT
     append FORWARD -i tun+ -j ACCEPT
     append FORWARD -i eth0 -o tun+ -j ACCEPT
     append FORWARD -i eth1 -o tun+ -j established
    

Setting up a Windows OpenVPN client

On the server:

1. cd easy-rsa

2. . vars

3. ./build-key username

On the client:

1. Install the OpenVPN GUI or the stand-alone OpenVPN client.

2. Copy username.crt, username.key, and ca.crt to C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config\ on the client.

3. Drop roadwarrior-client.conf into C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config\ as whatever.ovpn and edit appropriately.

4. Either use the GUI to start the connection, start the OpenVPN service manually, or set the OpenVPN service to start automatically.

Ideally the client should do some verification on the server key with tls-remote in the whatever.ovpn configuration file.