Adding a VPN Router to the network

The topology for the handling of downloads of stuff via a vpn previously involved a vpn client directly on rosemary. The problem with this was that sometimes the vpn would fail – it would get disconnected from the remote end. If I didn’t realize this, and started a download, it would be in the clear.

I thought a better solution was to have a separate router (herein the “vpn” router) between rosemary and the external router, and to have that router establish a constant vpn through it’s wan interface, through the external router. Everything that connected to a lan port on the vpn router would be protected. Rosemary would then use the vpn router as its path to the internet. Everything that rosemary sends or receives from the internet would come exclusively through the vpn router.

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Setting Up Openvpn Server

The objective of this project was to install a vpn server on one of the boxes in the cloud (initially asafoetida, then moved to tarragon), in order to provide a VPN server service for a friend who was traveling. My friend uses the name Darrell for his client, so in what follows the vpn is called by this name.

Create a Certificate Authority

A lot of the instructions, even from openvpn site, say to use the “easyrsa” package to generate the certificates for openvpn. This package seems to be put out by the openvpn boys, or at least with their cooperation. But I didn’t do that. I created a ca with raw openssl.

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