15.3 Post-Installation

15.3.1 Creating the OpenVPN Certificates for Clients in the Key Management Interface

OpenVPN Key Management allows you to create a new key/certificate pair, revoke an existing key/certificate pair, and download client configurations for Windows and Linux clients.

  1. Follow the post-installation instructions that appear at the end of your OpenVPN install, or log in to the NOWS SBE console.

  2. If you choose to log in to the NOWS SBE console, click Products and Services.

  3. Under Select Component, click VPN Server (OpenVPN).

  4. Under Administrative Console, click OpenVPN Key Management.

  5. You can now generate a client key, revoke a client, or download a client.

15.3.2 Monitoring Clients Connected to OpenVPN

The Connection Status window shows what clients are connected and displays their addresses.

  1. Follow the post-installation instructions that appear at the end of your OpenVPN install or log in to the NOWS SBE console.

  2. If you choose to log in to the NOWS SBE console, click Products and Services.

  3. Under Select Component, click VPN Server (OpenVPN).

  4. Under Administrative Console, click OpenVPN Connection Status.

  5. Monitor client activity.

15.3.3 Installing the Windows OpenVPN

Follow these steps to install Windows OpenVPN.

  1. Log in to the NOWS SBE console.

  2. Click Products and Services.

  3. Under Select Component, click VPN Server (OpenVPN).

  4. Click OpenVPN Key Management.

  5. Click Windows Client and Configuration.

  6. Specify the username in Unique Name field, then click Generate. This downloads a ZIP file to your desktop.

  7. Open the ZIP file and extract the contents to a folder on your system.

  8. To install the OpenVPN client and set up the client configuration, double-click the install.bat file. This loads the OpenVPN GUI Client Installation.

  9. All default values can be used during the installation. Under some versions of Windows, a warning prompts the user to allow installation of a non-secure driver. Click Continue.

  10. After the installation completes, a new program is visible in the taskbar. Click the new icon to launch OpenVPN with the new configuration; a status window displays, showing the connection progress.

    When the connection is fully established, the status window disappears and the taskbar briefly shows the new VPN address. At this point the VPN tunnel has been established and VPN has been successfully downloaded. The VPN tunnel can be broken by right-clicking the taskbar icon and selecting disconnect.