Like GRC's web site, this guide is primarily intended for Windows users; but they are also readily adaptable for users of Macintosh, Linux, and Unix systems. Since I am also an avid user and advocate of FreeBSD Unix, I have included pages specific to that flavor of Unix as well.

The VPN system constructed from these pages will allow authorized mobile remote users to easily, reliably and securely connect to their small office / home office (SOHO) networks. State of the art strong authentication and encryption are employed from end to end to guarantee that only authorized users are able to connect, and that those connections cannot be intercepted, monitored, or altered in any way. Once connected in this manner, the VPN fully secures all network traffic of the remotely connected machine and provides access to the user's internal home or office network and to the Internet through their SOHO network's Internet connection.

The Holy Grail

These guide pages grew out of a quest for "The Holy Grail" of reliable and secure remote personal Internet connectivity. This quest was originally and thoroughly described during a classic series of five "Security Now!" audio podcasts with Leo Laporte, made during November and December of 2005:

    Virtual Private Networks (VPN): Theory

    VPN Secure Tunneling Solutions

    PPTP and IPSec VPN Technology

    "Hamachi" Rocks!

    VPNs Three: Hamachi, iPig, and OpenVPN

You may use the links above to listen to these standard MP3 audio files in either high quality or smaller reduced quality, and also reference their accompanying episode notes and full text transcripts.

What is "OpenVPN"

As described on the software's home page (http://openvpn.net), OpenVPN describes itself as . . .

Why did I create this guide?

OpenVPN's greatest strength is its extremely high degree of configuration flexibility. It is truly a "Swiss Army Knife" VPN tool that handily accomplishes pretty much any "VPNish" task. But this tremendous flexibility comes at the cost of somewhat daunting complexity. Scroll down through the current release version's complete manual page to get an idea of OpenVPN's command-line and config-file configuration options.

Furthermore, a complete, turnkey, "soup to nuts" personal VPN solution requires OpenVPN's integration with interconnected components such as network bridging solutions, SOHO router configuration, and operating system configuration.

As you will learn on the following "Howto guide goals" page here, I have carefully and narrowly defined what I mean by a "Personal VPN Solution" — and it is exactly and only that which I describe. By deliberately limiting our target to the solution most useful to mobile remotely connecting users, I am able to offer a step-by-step guide with "pre-canned" configuration files which completely eliminates the need to understand OpenVPN's many options.

And users who want more are, of course, able to start with GRC's working configuration and extend or modify it from there.