OpenVPN

Follow one of the excellent guides from DigitalOcean (see Links below). Follow all the steps to the detail and everything will work, below are modifications I made for my personal requirements. Make sure you run commands as regular user and only elevate to root when told to do so.

1. Make sure you followed Initial Server Setup with Debian 9 before you setup the VPN Server
2. Establish a non-root administrative user with sudo privileges
3. Install UFW Firewall and make sure the correct interface is set up in /etc/ufw/before.rules
4. I separated the Certificate Authority Server (CA Server) and the VPN Server as recommended in the walk-through. I use 2 different VPN Servers in 2 locations with the same credentials, the CA Server is located on a virtual machine and switched off when not used. (bco: OpenVPN)
5. Install EasyRSA

Setting up the environment (VPN Server(s) and CA Server) takes a while, the many steps are outlined clearly and in detail in the Original Article below in my Wiki or on the DigitalOcean website. In this paragraph I summarized the steps necessary to add clients to the VPN. Since both VPN Servers use the same credentials, the process is identical apart from using a different base.conf file which contains the server's IP address.

• Navigate to the EasyRSA directory on your VPN Server and run the easyrsa script with the gen-req and nopass options, along with the common name for the client:

  $ cd ~/EasyRSA-3.0.4/
  $ ./easyrsa gen-req client1 nopass

• Press ENTER to confirm the common name. Then, copy the client1.key file to ~/client-configs/keys/:

  $ cp ~/EasyRSA-3.0.4/pki/private/client1.key ~/client-configs/keys/

• Log in to your CA Server and copy the client1.req file from the VPN Server:

  $ rsync -avz -e "ssh -p <port>" user@vpn.server.com:EasyRSA-3.0.4/pki/reqs/client1.req ~/EasyRSA-3.0.4/pki/reqs/.

• Navigate to the EasyRSA directory and sign the request, be sure to specify the client request type:

  $ ./easyrsa sign-req client client1

  At the prompt, enter yes to confirm that you intend to sign the certificate request and that it came from a trusted source. This will create a client certificate file named client1.crt.

• Copy the signed client1.crt file back to the VPN Server:

  $ rsync -avz -e "ssh -p <port>" ~/EasyRSA-3.0.4/pki/issued/client1.crt user@vpn.server.com:client-configs/keys/

• Log in to your VPN Server then navigate to ~/client-configs and run the 'make config' script:

  $ cd ~/client-configs
  $ sudo ./make_config.sh client1

• This will create a file named client1.ovpn in your ~/client-configs/files directory. Transfer this file to the device you plan to use as the client.
• Install the OpenVPN Client for Windows, Android, or other platforms.
• On Android, open the app and select the import icon top right to import the config file. You should now be able to open the VPN by selecting the profile created from the config file imported.

• How To Set Up an OpenVPN Server on Debian 11
• How To Set Up an OpenVPN Server on Debian 10
• How To Set Up an OpenVPN Server on Debian 9
• Easy-RSA 3
• Github Easy-RSA
• OpenVPN HowTo
• Problem connecting to local resources from a laptop