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Quickest Easiest Way to Install OpenVPN Server

Do you want to build your very own personal OpenVPN server but you have not much technical skill (and time) to build it from scratch? I previously posted how to manually install OpenVPN server on CentOS. I believe I explained all the steps as clear as possible but I notice there are still many comments asking some problems occur. Hence I also posted another tutorial to guide newbie installing OpenVPN-AS on Ubuntu but again it has few drawbacks like it has limitation in term of the number of users can use the VPN service.

So I started looking for another alternative until I found a cool OpenVPN Autoinstaller script by Nyr at GitHub. What makes me really impressed is the fact that the script only needs one line of command to execute. How cool is that?

Yet, the script will truly install and configure everything needed to build a working OpenVPN server. It also features multiple users which you can create and allow them to connect to special VPN server you’ve just built. Are you ready? Here’s what you need..

Requirements

  1. A server or VPS with at least 96MB of RAM (128MB or higher is recommended)
  2. Make sure it runs Debian-based distros (like Ubuntu)
  3. A cup of coffee and a spare time of yours

In this article I use a VPS with 96MB of RAM from BandwagonHost (the Micro-96 plan costs me $4.99 USD per year) running Debian 7 x86 Minimal template. Need recommendation? Try DigitalOcean, Ramnode or read all my recommendation here.

The Tutorial

Step 1 – Login to your VPS as root:

ovpn-1

Step 2 – Make sure the TUN/TAP module is enabled for your VPS. You can issue this command:

cat /dev/net/tun

it should return following output:

ovpn-2

other than output above, it means the TUN/TAP we are talking about is not enabled. It means you have to firstly enable it manually. If your VPS is based on OpenVZ virtualization and your VPS manager is SolusVM, you can simply see the option in SolusVM. Now login there and enable it:

ovpn-enable-tuntap

Step 3 – Now simply issue this one line of command to start installing OpenVPN automatically:

wget git.io/vpn --no-check-certificate -O openvpn-install.sh; bash openvpn-install.sh

It will then start downloading the script:

ovpn-installer-script

Step 4 – It will then ask series of questions you have to answer with –mostly– yes (y) or no (n):

ovpn-start-installer

Step 5 – Now enter the first client username which in my example I simply use client1. You can also change that to your real name but make sure it is one word only. Once done, hit Enter and wait about 2 minutes.

ovpn-installer-script-client-2

A screenshot of the process..

ovpn-installer-script-process

Step 6 – And once done, you’ll see something similar to this:

ovpn-installer-script-done

That’s it.

Connecting to OpenVPN Server

First thing first, you have to download that newly created *.ovpn file to your local computer. For that, you can simply move that file to your web directory (if you have web server installed) then download it via browser. Example of mine:

cp client1.ovpn /var/www/servermom.org/public_html/

Or, you can connect to your server either via FTP or sFTP and grab a local copy of that file. Personally I prefer to use this method so I used FileZilla and downloaded the client1.ovpn file.

download-ovpn-1

download-ovpn

Next, copy that file to default OpenVPN’s configuration folder. Usually it is Program Files > OpenVPN > config.

Now launch up OpenVPN client app (OpenVPN GUI) on your computer and try to connect to your newly created VPN server.

ovpn-connect-client-1

ovpn-connected-success

Once connected, you can launch your favorite web browser and visit either ipchicken.com or whatismyip.com and you should now see the IP of your VPS, not your real IP. Enjoy..

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