OpenVPN Service, Chemistry Network Access from home

What?

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows access to "internal" computing resources from "outside" across the internet, in a more transparent and general way than current methods of remote access (ssh, remote desktop etc.). Effectively the home/remote machine will acquire the same access as if it were on the internal Departmental network.

Did it work?

Why?

User benefits include:

easy to configure and use, giving a Chemistry Department IP address which allows access to otherwise restricted resources (journals, file-servers etc.)
secure access (once connected, all traffic is encrypted)
supported for Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix
supported by more ISPs than the other VPN solution

How?

The password you need to supply is your Admitto password. You will need to liaise with the Computer Officers to have this account created if you don't already have one (if you don't know whether you have an account or not, please email us to enquire or if you know your Raven password click here to check for an Admitto account).

Windows

OSX

Installing

To set it up on OSX, download and run the OSX installer. If you are using OSX 10.8 (Lion), you should download and run the Beta version instead. After installing tunnelblick, download the config file. The configuration file is compressed, so double-click it to expand it: you should then get a file 'Chemistry.tblk'. Double-click that to install the configuration.

Connecting

Select 'Connect Chemistry' from the TunnelBlick icon.

Linux

To set it up on Linux, use the OpenVPN package provided by your distribution (or hand-compile if you feel like it) and the files below.

If you are using Network Manager, there are some detailed instructions.

Files for configuring the OpenVPN client

Most OpenVPN interfaces provide the ability to import a config file. If not, configure the client to authenticate with "Password using certificates". It should use a custom port (443), LZO data compression and a TCP connection. (You will need to tell the OpenVPN client to use the certificate authority, client certificate and client key above.)