Install OpenVPN Server on CentOS 5.4

Install OpenVPN Server on CentOS 5.4

Published on August 17th, 2010 byAllen inNetwork

There are many guys asking me how to install OpenVPN on CentOS 5.2/5.4. I have a server with that system (minimal installation) exactly and I cannot find an all correct guide for this setup step. So I decide to write this post.

You cannot count on the post to explain what OpenVPN is. But if you just wanna a simple guide for installation, you’ve got it.

Preparation:

1 A server running with CentOS 5.2/5.4. I don’t know which services you’ve installed, so I have to install all necessary components by bash command. You can skip that command if you know that is installed.
2 A KVM, an SSH client or another way to connect to your server.
3 You must know how to use tool vi to edit file.

Setup guide:

All blue texts should be typed into bash command line, and press Enter after each command. All black texts are just commit. Read them as you wish.

Install some tools.

yum install -y wget Install a tool for downloading packages.
yum install -y iptables Install the controller for inputting firewall rules.

Configure yum to install OpenVPN

yum install -y yum-priorities Let your yum to install more packages.
cd /tmp
wget http://packages.sw.be/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.1-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm for x86 (32bit) only
wget http://packages.sw.be/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.1-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm for x64 (64bit) only
rpm -i rpmforge-release-0.5.1-1.el5.rf.*.rpm
yum check-update

Install OpenVPN

yum install -y openvpn

Configure OpenVPN Server

cd /etc/openvpn/
cp -R /usr/share/doc/openvpn-2.0.9/easy-rsa/ /etc/openvpn/
cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/
. ../vars There is a space between the 1st and 2nd dot.
chmod +rwx *
source ./vars
vi ../vars Modify the last several lines of this file to match your location and org name.
vi vars Modify the last several lines of this file to match your location and org name.
./build-ca Input your location and org name.
source ./vars
./clean-all
./build-ca Always press enter directly. You can verify your infomation in this step.
./build-key-server server Answer y twice for the 2 questions in the end, press enter directly for others.

Configure OpenVPN Setting. Following this post, you will get a server running at port 1194 with UDP protocol, and the sub network for VPN clients is 10.0.0.0/24. You can modify this document with the rest commands synchronously.

vi /etc/openvpn/openvpn.conf Create setting file.

Type all green text below to the edit form of vi.

port 1194 Use port 1194.
proto udp Use udp protocol. You can change this into tcp as you wish. It seems that udp is faster. Tcp can be used when you are using a udp banned network.
dev tun Mode. You can choose tun or tap. I don’t wanna explain this.
ca ca.crt
cert server.crt
key server.key
dh dh1024.pem
server 10.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 Sub network for VPN clients
push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.222.222" Use DNS of OpenDNS.
push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.220.220" Use DNS of OpenDNS.
push "redirect-gateway" Let all traffic from client to go though with this VPN server. Remove this line if you don’t want it.
ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt Let OpenVPN server to record the last used IP for each client, which allows client to use the same IP when reconnected.
keepalive 10 120
comp-lzo Enable compression for saving bandwidth.
user nobody
group users
persist-key
persist-tun
status openvpn-status.log
verb 3
client-to-client Allow clients to communicate with each others. Remove this line if you dont’t want it.

Save this file.

cp keys/{ca.crt,ca.key,server.crt,server.key} /etc/openvpn/
./build-dh This may take a while.
cp keys/dh1024.pem /etc/openvpn/
/etc/init.d/openvpn start Service starts!
chkconfig --list | grep vpn

Create key for each client.

The working folder is /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0 and you can verify it by typingpwd if you like. If it’s not, typecd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0 to change it. Runsource ./vars if needed.

Run this command for each client.
./build-key <client name> Answer y twice for the 2 questions in the end, press enter directly for others. Change <client name> to client name.

Final steps and add some firewall rules

service iptables start Start the iptables service.
iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p udp --dport 1194 -j ACCEPT Allow udp datagrams to be received from port 1194 of your nic eth0. Notice that there are 2 hyphens before dport.
iptables -A OUTPUT -o eth0 -p udp --dport 1194 -j ACCEPT Allow udp datagrams to be sent from port 1194 of your nic eth0. Notice that there are 2 hyphens before dport.
iptables -A INPUT -i tun0 -j ACCEPT Allow traffic from OpenVPN nic tun0. Change it to tap0 if you use tap mode in server configuration.
iptables -A OUTPUT -o tun0 -j ACCEPT Allow traffic from OpenVPN nic tun0. Change it to tap0 if you use tap mode in server configuration.
iptables -A FORWARD -o tun0 -j ACCEPT Allow traffic from OpenVPN nic tun0. Change it to tap0 if you use tap mode in server configuration.
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.0.0/24 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE Enable NAT.
/etc/init.d/iptables save Save iptables’ rules.
/etc/init.d/iptables restart Restart iptables service.
chkconfig iptables on Let iptables be started automatically.
chkconfig openvpn on So is openvpn.
vi /etc/sysctl.conf

Find a line with text net.ipv4.ip_forward = 0, change it intonet.ipv4.ip_forward = 1, and save this file.

You’ve finished the configuration of server. Please restart it.

shutdown -r now

All certifications and key files can be found at /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys. You should download ca.crt, <client name>.key and <client name>.crt to each client computer.

I’ll go on to create an OpenVPN client in Windows for example.

Download and install OpenVPN Windows Version.

Copy ca.crt, <client name>.key and <client name>.crt to its config folder (c:\Program Files (x86)\OpenVPN\config\ or c:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config\ by default). You can create a sub folder for each server to make it possible to connect to many servers, not at the same time.

Create a text file with extension “ovpn” in the folder which contains these 3 files with all green text below.

client
dev tun
proto udp
remote <your server name or ip address> 1194
resolv-retry infinite
nobind
persist-key
persist-tun
ca ca.crt
cert <client name>.crt
key <client name>.key
ns-cert-type server
comp-lzo
verb 3

Save this file.

Start OpenVPN Client, right click the icon in the system tray and connect the server. If you are running Windows Vista / 7 or Windows Server 2008 / 2008 R2, you have torun this program as administratorcoz Route.exe which will be run by OpenVPN need this.

I hope you get it though.
BTW, if you are using fedora, you may wanna check this post, which contains more commands to adjust firewall.

For CentOS 6.0: iptables’ commands need to be adjust. See your iptables configuration file for detail information.