Installing on CentOS 7 though didn’t work straight away though, because MongoDB didn’t install itself as a dependency. If you install on Ubuntu Server, then the instructions they provide are great. It’s open source and free (well, if you only want to have a single VPN server), and they publish packages for installation on Linux.Īt a basic level, it’s just a fancy wrapper around OpenVPN, but it really requires little knowledge or critical thinking to get up and running, which really appeals to me. It’s name came up on some Reddit discussions, and it really is a simple product to use. I tried to set up a L2TP VPN with the product to get my Mac connected, but again I couldn’t and just gave up and kept looking for alternatives. There isn’t really a stable OSX client yet though, in fact if you try to download it they don’t recommend using it. It’s a fantastic product, and it supports every common VPN protocol with just a few clicks. Install the product on a server and you can then connect instances of their client application to it. The hunt for an alternative unearthed the SoftEther VPN Project. I gave up and decided to look for alternatives.

If you know what you’re doing, please share your knowledge.Īfter tweaking settings on the Remote Access feature, forwarding ports, opening firewalls, etc.

But, I couldn’t for the life of me get a Mac to connect to it.ĭisclaimer: I’m not savvy with networking or VPN protocols yet, so this is just some dude blundering along trying to get stuff working. I had surprising instantaneous success connecting a Windows machine to my VPN using the native VPN client capability. In fact, if you do what I did and enable the Server Essentials feature, this will be enabled and configured for you automatically. Out of the box, Microsoft let you turn any Windows Server 2012 (and earlier) server into a fully featured VPN server. I don’t want to host it in the cloud, I just want to use an existing machine in my home network and go from there. So I’ve been on the hunt now for a easy-to-manage VPN product for personal use. Not a whole lot of money (min USD$96/year), but its still a lot for someone who just wants to be able to connect to their home network from anywhere. Well, they do offer the Access Server product, but it costs money. OpenVPN is probably one of the most popular Open Source VPN products available (not that I know actual figures, I’m just going off how often its name comes up), but the product lacks an easy management tool to connect clients and keep an eye on things.

Softether vpn client manager 2015