Ubuntu – Connecting to Private Internet Access server using OpenVPN and Ubuntu 16.04 server

16.04openvpnservervpn

Can someone please give me a guide to setup a vpn connection (that connects on startup) using openvpn and ubuntu 16.04 server. all the guides on the internet are wrong, outdated, or just don't work. i have an account with private internet access and i just want to setup a connection. something i feel should be very simple but i lack the experience needed as this is my first server and I'm still learning.

Best Answer

Start by downloading this: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/openvpn/openvpn.zip and extract it somewhere.

That archive contains 3 important files: ca.crt, crl.pem and YourServer.ovpn (e.g. Germany.ovpn), copy those to /etc/openvpn/. Rename the .ovpn file to .conf and add a line auth-user-pass secrets Create a new file /etc/openvpn/secrets with your PIA username on the first and your password on the second line, like this:

p1234567
MyPIAPassword

For security reasons you should chmod 600 that.

See if your connection works: systemctl start openvpn@YourServer (e.g. systemctl start openvpn@Germany. Debug as necessary: tail -f /var/log/syslog|grep ovpn and systemctl status openvpn@YourServer

If it works, make it run on startup by editing /etc/default/openvpn and uncommenting the line that says AUTOSTART="all"

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – OpenVPN client cannot access any network except for the server itself after connection

Check your default route:
```
ip route | grep default
```

Output

default via 84.88.154.1 dev enp7s0 proto static metric 100 
default via 192.168.1.1 dev enp3s0 proto static metric 20101

When enp3s0 is your default output interface for internal network, then

Command:
```
sudo nano /etc/ufw/before.rules
```
Edit the before.rules file:

/etc/ufw/before.rules:

#
# rules.before
#
# Rules that should be run before the ufw command line added rules. Custom
# rules should be added to one of these chains:
#   ufw-before-input
#   ufw-before-output
#   ufw-before-forward
#

# START OPENVPN RULES
# NAT table rules
*nat
:POSTROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] 
# Allow traffic from OpenVPN client to enp3s0 (change to the interface you discovered!)
-A POSTROUTING -s 10.8.0.0/8 -o enp3s0 -j MASQUERADE
COMMIT
# END OPENVPN RULES

# Don't delete these required lines, otherwise there will be errors
*filter
. . .

Command:
```
sudo nano /etc/default/ufw
```
Change: /etc/default/ufw:
```
DEFAULT_FORWARD_POLICY="ACCEPT"
```
Commands:
```
sudo ufw disable

sudo ufw enable
```

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – OpenVPN client cannot access any network except for the server itself after connection

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