Setting up a VPN Server and Client

We recommend using openvpn inside a docker container to run the server and client. We used the https://github.com/kylemanna/docker-openvpn for our testing.

In this tutorial we assume that the VPN server is running on the Cloud and the VPN client is running locally.

Quick Start for Server

Generating a client configuration

Setup the environment variables with appropriate values for your setup.

CODE

OVPN_DATA="ovpn-data-flightgoggles"
CLIENTNAME="client"
CLIENTNAME_CERT="client.ovpn"

Replace VPN.SERVERNAME.COM for the following variable with your public IP address

CODE

SERVERNAME="udp://VPN.SERVERNAME.COM"

Make a data volume container containing the configuration files and certificates.

CODE

docker volume create --name $OVPN_DATA

Next we generate the configuration files and certificate. The container will prompt for a passphrase to protect the private key used by the newly generated certificate authority.

CODE

docker run -v $OVPN_DATA:/etc/openvpn --log-driver=none --rm kylemanna/openvpn ovpn_genconfig -u $SERVERNAME
docker run -v $OVPN_DATA:/etc/openvpn --log-driver=none --rm -it kylemanna/openvpn ovpn_initpki

Start OpenVPN server process

CODE

docker run -v $OVPN_DATA:/etc/openvpn -d -p 1194:1194/udp --cap-add=NET_ADMIN --privileged --name=openvpn -e DEBUG=1 kylemanna/openvpn

Generate a client certificate without a passphrase

CODE

docker run -v $OVPN_DATA:/etc/openvpn --log-driver=none --rm -it kylemanna/openvpn easyrsa build-client-full $CLIENTNAME nopass

Retrieve the client configuration with embedded certificates

CODE

docker run -v $OVPN_DATA:/etc/openvpn --log-driver=none --rm kylemanna/openvpn ovpn_getclient $CLIENTNAME > $CLIENTNAME_CERT

If you are using AWS or a server with access restrictions, you need to expose port 1194 for UDP use by changing the security group.

Once, the configuration has been generated. Find the docker container’s name using

CODE

docker ps

Kill the container using

Replace name-of-container in the following line with the name of the container from the above command.

CODE

docker kill name-of-container

Starting the OpenVPN server

Setup the environment variables with appropriate values for your setup.

CODE

OVPN_DATA="ovpn-data-flightgoggles"
CLIENTNAME="client"
CLIENTNAME_CERT="client.ovpn"

Start OpenVPN server process

CODE

docker run -v $OVPN_DATA:/etc/openvpn -p 1194:1194/udp --cap-add=NET_ADMIN --privileged --net=host --name=openvpn -e DEBUG=1 kylemanna/openvpn

Quick Start for Client

Copy the configuration file to the client and run the openvpn client using

CODE

CLIENTNAME_CERT="client.ovpn"
sudo openvpn --config $CLIENTNAME_CERT