the DIY home VPN experiment (part four - my Raspberry Pi OpenVPN server)

Part Four: my Raspberry Pi OpenVPN server

Overview

In this post, I'd like to share my most recent home lab project - an OpenVPN server running on my Raspberry Pi. The idea for the DIY home VPN experiment basically came along when I was working on setting up a VPN with my older Linksys router. I wanted to come up with some different ways to run a home lab VPN server. In addition, running it on my Raspberry Pi was a fairly safe and controlled experiment, without running the risk of bricking my router with non-standard firmware.

The concept here is to forward VPN traffic received on the public interface of the Internet router (via incoming TCP port 1194) to the OpenVPN server's interface. The VPN server authenticates the connection, and regulates forwarding traffic to and from various destinations on your private network, based on a defined set of rules. This could include forwarding traffic to your desktop to enable a remote sharing via VNC, RDP, SSH, or other protocol.

has it been five months already?

Yes, it has been five months now since I began this journey as a newbie blogger with my site empiricvirtualization.com - wow, how the time has flown by! I chose the word empiric because it aptly describes my mission to share some of my hands-on knowledge and experiences. I’ve had the privilege to share some fairly unique posts with you (i.e. the hunt for the elusive dvSwitch config, and my virtualized OpenVPN server), and also become more active in the virtualization and tech communities.

I’d like to say a big THANK YOU to my readers and followers; because, it really is you that motivates me to keep blogging, even though the time required can be rather elusive. It is my intention to continue to deliver unique and educational content, and to start new conversations.

Have you enjoyed these posts? Is there a topic that you would like me to write about? I’d love to hear your feedback.

Here is a sneak peak at some upcoming posts:

• vCenter 5.5 Gotchas
  • This post will cover some of my experiences deploying vCenter and Site Recovery Manager 5.5, some of the issues I encountered, and how I successfully overcame them.
• Deploying an OpenVPN Server on my Raspberri Pi
  • This is the fourth installment in the DIY home VPN experiment series. This post will discuss my OpenVPN deployment using my Raspberri Pi running Pidora.

If you enjoy this content, or other virtualization blogs, please consider voting in VSphere-Land's 2014 Top VMware & Virtualization Blogs  and support the #vCommunity. 

Keep on virtualizing!

the DIY home VPN experiment (part three - my virtualized OpenVPN server)

Part Three: My Virtualized OpenVPN Server

Overview

In this post, I'd like to share my most recent home lab project - a nested OpenVPN server. I refer to it as nested, because it is running completely within my desktop computer. See the illustration below.

The idea for this project came along when I working on setting up a VPN with my older Linksys router. Basically, I wanted to come up with a way to run a home lab VPN server without requiring any additional hardware, and I wanted to incorporate virtualization into this project. In addition, running it as a VM allows for fairly safe and controlled experimentation, without running the risk of bricking one's router with non-standard firmware.

the DIY home VPN experiment (part two - PKI)

Part Two: Generating a PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) for my OpenVPN Deployment

In part one of the DIY home VPN experiment, I introduced the project that I am working on - a client-server VPN utilizing OpenVPN. I will be deploying a VPN server using three different methods: 1) a VM running on VMware Fusion, 2) using CentOS on a Raspberry Pi, and 3) using DD-WRT on a consumer router; however, I would like to begin by building the common foundation - the PKI.

What is a PKI, or public key infrastructure?

the DIY home VPN experiment (part one - intro)

Part One: Introduction

It’s been a while since my last blog entry, and I’ve decided to catch you up on some of the projects that I’ve been working on in my home lab. This next series of posts is going to revolve around the do-it-yourself home VPN.

What is a VPN, or virtual private network?