VPN Access

To get full access to our network from external locations we provide a VPN access based on openvpn. This is free software and part of every Linux distribution. The following guide has been tested with Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10. It is available for Windows and MacOS too.

Install OpenVPN

It is not part of the default installation, but can easily installed using apt. Enter the following commands:

 sudo apt-get install openvpn

The requieres to enter your password to get super user previleges.

Command line configuration

This is fast and easy but requieres to enter commands. Create or download [1] the config file and store it anywhere you like:

# ITP OpenVPN configuration.
client
dev tap
proto udp
nobind
remote vpn.th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de
tls-remote /CN=FIAS-ITP_Generic_VPN_Service
remote-cert-tls server
resolv-retry infinite
auth-user-pass

# Adapt this to the path of our CA certificate file.
ca localca.full.pem

# Comment out the following line to only route ITP connections over the VPN.
redirect-gateway def1
                      

Download our CA (Certificate of Authority) [2] and store it in the same place. This file is needed for verifcation the authenticity of the server.

Start the VPN connection

Open a terminal and change to the path where the vpn config file is stored. Start the connection with

 sudo openvpn itp.ovpn

where itp.ovpn is the name of the config file. openvpn need root access, therefor you must enter your local password for sudo. After this you have to enter your ITP credentials (Username and Password).