Small OpenVPN setup with peer-fingerprint
=========================================
This section consists of instructions how to build a small OpenVPN setup with the
:code:`peer-fingerprint` option. This has the advantage of being easy to setup
and should be suitable for most small lab and home setups without the need for a PKI.
For bigger scale setup setting up a PKI (e.g. via easy-rsa) is still recommended.
Both server and client configuration can be further modified to customise the
setup.
Server setup
------------
1. Install openvpn
Compile from source-code (see `INSTALL` file) or install via a distribution (apt/yum/ports)
or via installer (Windows).
2. Generate a self-signed certificate for the server:
::
openssl req -x509 -newkey ec -pkeyopt ec_paramgen_curve:secp384r1 -keyout server.key -out server.crt -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -subj '/CN=server'
3. Generate SHA256 fingerprint of the server certificate
Use the OpenSSL command line utility to view the fingerprint of just
created certificate:
::
openssl x509 -fingerprint -sha256 -in server.crt -noout
This outputs something similar to:
::
SHA256 Fingerprint=00:11:22:33:44:55:66:77:88:99:aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff:00:11:22:33:44:55:66:77:88:99:aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
4. Write a server configuration (`server.conf`)::
# The server certificate we created in step 1
cert server.crt
key server.key
dh none
dev tun
# Listen on IPv6+IPv4 simultaneously
proto udp6
# The ip address the server will distribute
server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0
server-ipv6 fd00:6f76:706e::/64
# A tun-mtu of 1400 avoids problems of too big packets after VPN encapsulation
tun-mtu 1400
# The fingerprints of your clients. After adding/removing one here restart the
# server
# Notify clients when you restart the server to reconnect quickly
explicit-exit-notify 1
# Ping every 60s, restart if no data received for 5 minutes
keepalive 60 300
# Uncomment the line below if you want to have persistent IP addresses
# ifconfig-pool-persist /etc/openvpn/server/ipp.txt
# Uncomment the line below to push a DNS server to clients
# push "dhcp-option DNS 1.1.1.1"
5. Add at least one client as described in the client section.
6. Start the server.
- On systemd based distributions move `server.crt`, `server.key` and
`server.conf` to :code:`/etc/openvpn/server` and start it via systemctl
::
sudo mv server.conf server.key server.crt /etc/openvpn/server
sudo systemctl start openvpn-server@server
Adding a client
---------------
1. Install OpenVPN
2. Generate a self-signed certificate for the client. In this example the client
name is alice. Each client should have a unique name. Replace alice with a
different name for each client.
::
openssl req -x509 -newkey ec -pkeyopt ec_paramgen_curve:secp384r1 -keyout - -nodes -sha256 -days 3650 -subj '/CN=alice'
This generate a certificate and a key for the client. The output of the command will look
something like this:
::
-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
[base64 content]
-----END PRIVATE KEY-----
-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
[base 64 content]
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
3. Create a new client configuration file. In this example we will name the file
`alice.ovpn`:
::
# The name of your server to connect to
remote yourserver.example.net
client
# use a random source port instead the fixed 1194
nobind
# Uncomment the following line if you want to route
# all traffic via the VPN
# redirect-gateway def1 ipv6
# To set a DNS server
# dhcp-option DNS 192.168.234.1
-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
[Insert here the key created in step 2]
-----END PRIVATE KEY-----
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
[Insert here the certificate created in step 2]
-----END CERTIFICATE-----
# This is the fingerprint of the server that we trust. We generated this fingerprint
# in step 2 of the server setup
peer-fingerprint 00:11:22:33:44:55:66:77:88:99:aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff:00:11:22:33:44:55:66:77:88:99:aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
# The tun-mtu of the client should match the server MTU
tun-mtu 1400
dev tun
4. Generate the fingerprint of the client certificate. For that we will
let OpenSSL read the client configuration file as the x509 command will
ignore anything that is not between the begin and end markers of the certificate:
::
openssl x509 -fingerprint -sha256 -noout -in alice.ovpn
This will again output something like
::
SHA256 Fingerprint=ff:ee:dd:cc:bb:aa:99:88:77:66:55:44:33:22:11:00:ff:ee:dd:cc:bb:aa:99:88:77:66:55:44:33:22:11:00
5. Edit the `server.conf` configuration file and add this new client
fingerprint as additional line between :code:``
and :code:``
After adding *two* clients the part of configuration would look like this:
::
ff:ee:dd:cc:bb:aa:99:88:77:66:55:44:33:22:11:00:ff:ee:dd:cc:bb:aa:99:88:77:66:55:44:33:22:11:00
99:88:77:66:55:44:33:22:11:00:ff:ee:dd:cc:bb:aa:99:88:77:66:55:44:33:22:11:00:88:77:66:55:44:33
6. (optional) if the client is an older client that does not support the
:code:`peer-fingerprint` (e.g. OpenVPN 2.5 and older, OpenVPN Connect 3.3
and older), the client config `alice.ovpn` can be modified to still work with
these clients.
Remove the line starting with :code:`peer-fingerprint`. Then
add a new :code:`` section at the end of the configuration file
with the contents of the :code:`server.crt` created in step 2 of the
server setup. The end of `alice.ovpn` file should like:
::
[...] # Beginning of the file skipped
# The tun-mtu of the client should match the server MTU
tun-mtu 1400
dev tun
[contents of the server.crt]
Note that we put the :code:`` section after the :code:`` section
to make the fingerprint generation from step 4 still work since it will
only use the first certificate it finds.
7. Import the file into the OpenVPN client or just use the
:code:`openvpn alice.ovpn` to start the VPN.