OpenVPN
Traditionally hardware routers implement IPsec exclusively due to relative ease of implementing it in hardware and insufficient CPU power for doing encryption in software. Since VyOS is a software router, this is less of a concern. OpenVPN has been widely used on UNIX platform for a long time and is a popular option for remote access VPN, though it’s also capable of site-to-site connections.
Advantages of OpenVPN are:
It uses a single TCP or UDP connection and does not rely on packet source addresses, so it will work even through a double NAT: perfect for public hotspots and such
It’s easy to setup and offers very flexible split tunneling
There’s a variety of client GUI frontends for any platform
Disadvantages are:
It’s slower than IPsec due to higher protocol overhead and the fact it runs in user mode while IPsec, on Linux, is in kernel mode
None of the operating systems have client software installed by default
In the VyOS CLI, a key point often overlooked is that rather than being configured using the set vpn stanza, OpenVPN is configured as a network interface using set interfaces openvpn.
OpenVPN Site-To-Site
While many are aware of OpenVPN as a Client VPN solution, it is often overlooked as a site-to-site VPN solution due to lack of support for this mode in many router platforms.
Site-to-site mode supports x.509 but doesn’t require it and can also work with static keys, which is simpler in many cases. In this example, we’ll configure a simple site-to-site OpenVPN tunnel using a 2048-bit pre-shared key.
First, one of the system generates the key using the operational command
generate openvpn key <filename>. This will generate a key with the name
provided in the /config/auth/ directory. Once generated, you will need to
copy this key to the remote router.
In our example, we used the filename openvpn-1.key which we will reference in our configuration.
The public IP address of the local side of the VPN will be 198.51.100.10
The remote will be 203.0.113.11
The tunnel will use 10.255.1.1 for the local IP and 10.255.1.2 for the remote.
OpenVPN allows for either TCP or UDP. UDP will provide the lowest latency, while TCP will work better for lossy connections; generally UDP is preferred when possible.
The official port for OpenVPN is 1194, which we reserve for client VPN; we will use 1195 for site-to-site VPN.
The persistent-tunnel directive will allow us to configure tunnel-related attributes, such as firewall policy as we would on any normal network interface.
If known, the IP of the remote router can be configured using the remote-host directive; if unknown, it can be omitted. We will assume a dynamic IP for our remote router.
Local Configuration:
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 mode site-to-site
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 protocol udp
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 persistent-tunnel
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 local-host '198.51.100.10'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 local-port '1195'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 remote-port '1195'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 shared-secret-key-file '/config/auth/openvpn-1.key'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 local-address '10.255.1.1'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 remote-address '10.255.1.2'
Remote Configuration:
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 mode site-to-site
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 protocol udp
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 persistent-tunnel
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 remote-host '198.51.100.10'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 local-port '1195'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 remote-port '1195'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 shared-secret-key-file '/config/auth/openvpn-1.key'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 local-address '10.255.1.2'
set interfaces openvpn vtun1 remote-address '10.255.1.1'
The above configurations will by default use 128-bit Blowfish in CBC mode for encryption and SHA-1 for HMAC authentication. These are both considered weak, but a number of other encryption and hashing algorithms are available:
For Encryption:
vyos@vyos# set interfaces openvpn vtun1 encryption
Possible completions:
des DES algorithm
3des DES algorithm with triple encryption
bf128 Blowfish algorithm with 128-bit key
bf256 Blowfish algorithm with 256-bit key
aes128 AES algorithm with 128-bit key
aes192 AES algorithm with 192-bit key
aes256 AES algorithm with 256-bit key
For Hashing:
vyos@vyos# set interfaces openvpn vtun1 hash
Possible completions:
md5 MD5 algorithm
sha1 SHA-1 algorithm
sha256 SHA-256 algorithm
sha512 SHA-512 algorithm
If you change the default encryption and hashing algorithms, be sure that the local and remote ends have matching configurations, otherwise the tunnel will not come up.
Static routes can be configured referencing the tunnel interface; for example, the local router will use a network of 10.0.0.0/16, while the remote has a network of 10.1.0.0/16:
Local Configuration:
set protocols static interface-route 10.1.0.0/16 next-hop-interface vtun1
Remote Configuration:
set protocols static interface-route 10.0.0.0/16 next-hop-interface vtun1
Firewall policy can also be applied to the tunnel interface for local, in, and out directions and function identically to ethernet interfaces.
If making use of multiple tunnels, OpenVPN must have a way to distinguish between different tunnels aside from the pre-shared-key. This is either by referencing IP address or port number. One option is to dedicate a public IP to each tunnel. Another option is to dedicate a port number to each tunnel (e.g. 1195,1196,1197…).
OpenVPN status can be verified using the show openvpn operational commands. See the built-in help for a complete list of options.
OpenVPN Server
Multi-client server is the most popular OpenVPN mode on routers. It always uses x.509 authentication and therefore requires a PKI setup. This guide assumes you have already setup a PKI and have a CA certificate, a server certificate and key, a certificate revocation list, a Diffie-Hellman key exchange parameters file. You do not need client certificates and keys for the server setup.
In this example we will use the most complicated case: a setup where each client is a router that has its own subnet (think HQ and branch offices), since simpler setups are subsets of it.
Suppose you want to use 10.23.1.0/24 network for client tunnel endpoints and all client subnets belong to 10.23.0.0/20. All clients need access to the 192.168.0.0/16 network.
First we need to specify the basic settings. 1194/UDP is the default. The persistent-tunnel option is recommended, it prevents the TUN/TAP device from closing on connection resets or daemon reloads.
Note
Using openvpn-option -reneg-sec can be tricky. This option is used to renegotiate data channel after n seconds. When used at both server and client, the lower value will trigger the renegotiation. If you set it to 0 on one side of the connection (to disable it), the chosen value on the other side will determine when the renegotiation will occur.
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 mode server
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 local-port 1194
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 persistent-tunnel
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 protocol udp
Then we need to specify the location of the cryptographic materials. Suppose you keep the files in /config/auth/openvpn
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls ca-cert-file /config/auth/openvpn/ca.crt
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls cert-file /config/auth/openvpn/server.crt
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls key-file /config/auth/openvpn/server.key
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls crl-file /config/auth/openvpn/crl.pem
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls dh-file /config/auth/openvpn/dh2048.pem
Now we need to specify the server network settings. In all cases we need to specify the subnet for client tunnel endpoints. Since we want clients to access a specific network behind our router, we will use a push-route option for installing that route on clients.
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server push-route 192.168.0.0/16
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server subnet 10.23.1.0/24
Since it’s a HQ and branch offices setup, we will want all clients to have fixed addresses and we will route traffic to specific subnets through them. We need configuration for each client to achieve this.
Note
Clients are identified by the CN field of their x.509 certificates,
in this example the CN is client0:
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server client client0 ip 10.23.1.10
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server client client0 subnet 10.23.2.0/25
OpenVPN will not automatically create routes in the kernel for client subnets when they connect and will only use client-subnet association internally, so we need to create a route to the 10.23.0.0/20 network ourselves:
set protocols static interface-route 10.23.0.0/20 next-hop-interface vtun10
Client Authentication
OpenLDAP
Enterprise installations usually ship a kind of directory service which is used to have a single password store for all employees. VyOS and OpenVPN support using LDAP/AD as single user backend.
Authentication is done by using the openvpn-auth-ldap.so plugin which is
shipped with every VyOS installation. A dedicated configuration file is
required. It is best practise to store it in /config to survive image
updates
set interfaces openvpn vtun0 openvpn-option "--plugin /usr/lib/openvpn/openvpn-auth-ldap.so /config/auth/ldap-auth.config"
The required config file may look like:
<LDAP>
# LDAP server URL
URL ldap://ldap.example.com
# Bind DN (If your LDAP server doesn't support anonymous binds)
BindDN cn=LDAPUser,dc=example,dc=com
# Bind Password password
Password S3cr3t
# Network timeout (in seconds)
Timeout 15
</LDAP>
<Authorization>
# Base DN
BaseDN "ou=people,dc=example,dc=com"
# User Search Filter
SearchFilter "(&(uid=%u)(objectClass=shadowAccount))"
# Require Group Membership - allow all users
RequireGroup false
</Authorization>
Active Directory
Despite the fact that AD is a superset of LDAP
<LDAP>
# LDAP server URL
URL ldap://dc01.example.com
# Bind DN (If your LDAP server doesn’t support anonymous binds)
BindDN CN=LDAPUser,DC=example,DC=com
# Bind Password
Password mysecretpassword
# Network timeout (in seconds)
Timeout 15
# Enable Start TLS
TLSEnable no
# Follow LDAP Referrals (anonymously)
FollowReferrals no
</LDAP>
<Authorization>
# Base DN
BaseDN "DC=example,DC=com"
# User Search Filter, user must be a member of the VPN AD group
SearchFilter "(&(sAMAccountName=%u)(memberOf=CN=VPN,OU=Groups,DC=example,DC=com))"
# Require Group Membership
RequireGroup false # already handled by SearchFilter
<Group>
BaseDN "OU=Groups,DC=example,DC=com"
SearchFilter "(|(cn=VPN))"
MemberAttribute memberOf
</Group>
</Authorization>
If you only want to check if the user account is enabled and can authenticate (against the primary group) the following snipped is sufficient:
<LDAP>
URL ldap://dc01.example.com
BindDN CN=SA_OPENVPN,OU=ServiceAccounts,DC=example,DC=com
Password ThisIsTopSecret
Timeout 15
TLSEnable no
FollowReferrals no
</LDAP>
<Authorization>
BaseDN "DC=example,DC=com"
SearchFilter "sAMAccountName=%u"
RequireGroup false
</Authorization>
A complete LDAP auth OpenVPN configuration could look like the following example:
vyos@vyos# show interfaces openvpn
openvpn vtun0 {
mode server
openvpn-option "--tun-mtu 1500 --fragment 1300 --mssfix"
openvpn-option "--plugin /usr/lib/openvpn/openvpn-auth-ldap.so /config/auth/ldap-auth.config"
openvpn-option "--push redirect-gateway"
openvpn-option --duplicate-cn
openvpn-option --client-cert-not-required
openvpn-option --comp-lzo
openvpn-option --persist-key
openvpn-option --persist-tun
server {
domain-name example.com
max-connections 5
name-server 1.1.1.1
name-server 9.9.9.9
subnet 172.18.100.128/29
}
tls {
ca-cert-file /config/auth/ca.crt
cert-file /config/auth/server.crt
dh-file /config/auth/dh1024.pem
key-file /config/auth/server.key
}
}
OpenVPN Client
VyOS can not only act as an OpenVPN site-to-site but also as a Server for multiple clients. You can indeed also configure any VyOS OpenVPN interface as an OpenVPN client connecting to a VyOS OpenVPN server or any other OpenVPN server.
Given the following example we have one VyOS router acting as OpenVPN server and another VyOS router acting as OpenVPN client. The Server also pushes a static client IP address to the OpenVPN client. Remember, clients are identified using their CN attribute in the SSL certificate.
Server
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 encryption 'aes256'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 hash 'sha512'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 local-host '172.18.201.10'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 local-port '1194'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 mode 'server'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 persistent-tunnel
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 protocol 'udp'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server client client1 ip '10.10.0.10'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server domain-name 'vyos.net'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server max-connections '250'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server name-server '172.16.254.30'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server subnet '10.10.0.0/24'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 server topology 'subnet'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls ca-cert-file '/config/auth/ca.crt'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls cert-file '/config/auth/server.crt'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls dh-file '/config/auth/dh.pem'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls key-file '/config/auth/server.key'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 use-lzo-compression
Client
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 encryption 'aes256'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 hash 'sha512'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 mode 'client'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 persistent-tunnel
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 protocol 'udp'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 remote-host '172.18.201.10'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 remote-port '1194'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls ca-cert-file '/config/auth/ca.crt'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls cert-file '/config/auth/client1.crt'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 tls key-file '/config/auth/client1.key'
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 use-lzo-compression
Options
We do not have CLI nodes for every single OpenVPN options. If an option is missing, a feature request should be opened at https://phabricator.vyos.net so all users can benefit from it.
If you are a hacker or want to try on your own we support passing raw OpenVPN options to OpenVPN.
set interfaces openvpn vtun10 openvpn-option 'persistent-key'
Will add persistent-key at the end of the generated OpenVPN configuration. Please use this only as last resort - things might break and OpenVPN won’t start if you pass invalid options/syntax.
Troubleshooting
VyOS provides some operational commands on OpenVPN.
Check status
The following commands let you check tunnel status.
Reset OpenVPN
The following commands let you reset OpenVPN.