Installation instructions for OpenVPN, a Secure Tunneling Daemon

Copyright (C) 2002-2019 OpenVPN Inc. This program is free software;
you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2
as published by the Free Software Foundation.

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QUICK START:

  Unix:
    ./configure && make && make install

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To download OpenVPN source code of releases, go to:

    https://openvpn.net/community-downloads/

OpenVPN releases are also available as Debian/RPM packages:

    https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/OpenvpnSoftwareRepos

OpenVPN development versions can be found here:

   https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn
   https://gitlab.com/OpenVPN/openvpn
   https://sourceforge.net/p/openvpn/openvpn/ci/master/tree/

They should all be in sync at any time.

To download easy-rsa go to:

    https://github.com/OpenVPN/easy-rsa

To download tap-windows (NDIS 6) driver source code go to:

    https://github.com/OpenVPN/tap-windows6

To get the cross-compilation environment go to:

    https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn-build

For step-by-step instructions with real-world examples see:

    https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/GettingStartedwithOVPN
    https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki
    https://openvpn.net/community-resources/

Also see the man page for more information.

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SUPPORTED PLATFORMS:
  (1) Linux (kernel 2.6+)
  (2) Solaris
  (3) OpenBSD 5.1+
  (4) Mac OS X Darwin 10.5+
  (5) FreeBSD 7.4+
  (6) NetBSD 5.0+
  (7) Windows Vista or later for OpenVPN 2.4
  (8) Windows XP or later for OpenVPN 2.3

SUPPORTED PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURES:
   In general, OpenVPN is word size and endian independent, so
   most processors should be supported.  Architectures known to
   work include Intel x86, Alpha, Sparc, Amd64, and ARM.

REQUIRES:
  (1) TUN and/or TAP driver to allow user-space programs to control
      a virtual point-to-point IP or Ethernet device.  See
      TUN/TAP Driver Configuration section below for more info.

OPTIONAL (but recommended):
  (1) OpenSSL library, necessary for encryption, version 0.9.8 or higher
      required, available from http://www.openssl.org/
  (2) mbed TLS library, an alternative for encryption, version 2.0 or higher
      required, available from https://tls.mbed.org/
  (3) LZO real-time compression library, required for link compression,
      available from http://www.oberhumer.com/opensource/lzo/
      OpenBSD users can use ports or packages to install lzo, but remember
      to add CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib"
      directives to "configure", since gcc will not find them otherwise.

OPTIONAL (for developers only):
  (1) Autoconf 2.59 or higher + Automake 1.9 or higher
      -- available from http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html
  (2) Dmalloc library
      -- available from http://dmalloc.com/
  (3) If using t_client.sh test framework, fping/fping6 is needed
      -- Available from http://www.fping.org/
      Note: t_client.sh needs an external configured OpenVPN server.
      See t_client.rc-sample for more info.

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CHECK OUT SOURCE FROM SOURCE REPOSITORY:

  Clone the repository:

    git clone https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn
    git clone https://gitlab.com/OpenVPN/openvpn
    git clone git://openvpn.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/openvpn/openvpn

  Check out stable version:

    git checkout release/2.4

  Check out master (unstable) branch:

    git checkout master


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BUILD COMMANDS FROM TARBALL:

	./configure
	make
	make install

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BUILD COMMANDS FROM SOURCE REPOSITORY CHECKOUT:

	autoreconf -i -v -f
	./configure
	make
	make install

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BUILD A TARBALL FROM SOURCE REPOSITORY CHECKOUT:

	autoreconf -i -v -f
	./configure
	make distcheck

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TESTS (after BUILD):

make check (Run all tests below)

Test Crypto:

./openvpn --genkey --secret key
./openvpn --test-crypto --secret key

Test SSL/TLS negotiations (runs for 2 minutes):

./openvpn --config sample/sample-config-files/loopback-client (In one window)
./openvpn --config sample/sample-config-files/loopback-server (Simultaneously in another window)

For more thorough client-server tests you can configure your own, private test
environment. See tests/t_client.rc-sample for details.

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OPTIONS for ./configure:

  --disable-lzo           disable LZO compression support [default=yes]
  --disable-lz4           Disable LZ4 compression support
  --enable-comp-stub      Don't compile compression support but still allow limited interoperability with compression-enabled peers
  --disable-crypto        disable crypto support [default=yes]
  --disable-ofb-cfb       disable support for OFB and CFB cipher modes
                          [default=yes]
  --enable-x509-alt-username
                          enable the --x509-username-field feature
                          [default=no]
  --disable-server        disable server support only (but retain client
                          support) [default=yes]
  --disable-plugins       disable plug-in support [default=yes]
  --disable-management    disable management server support [default=yes]
  --enable-pkcs11         enable pkcs11 support [default=no]
  --disable-fragment      disable internal fragmentation support (--fragment)
                          [default=yes]
  --disable-multihome     disable multi-homed UDP server support (--multihome)
                          [default=yes]
  --disable-port-share    disable TCP server port-share support (--port-share)
                          [default=yes]
  --disable-debug         disable debugging support (disable gremlin and verb
                          7+ messages) [default=yes]
  --enable-small          enable smaller executable size (disable OCC, usage
                          message, and verb 4 parm list) [default=no]
  --enable-iproute2       enable support for iproute2 [default=no]
  --disable-def-auth      disable deferred authentication [default=yes]
  --disable-pf            disable internal packet filter [default=yes]
  --disable-plugin-auth-pam
                          disable auth-pam plugin [default=platform specific]
  --disable-plugin-down-root
                          disable down-root plugin [default=platform specific]
  --enable-pam-dlopen     dlopen libpam [default=no]
  --enable-strict         enable strict compiler warnings (debugging option)
                          [default=no]
  --enable-pedantic       enable pedantic compiler warnings, will not generate
                          a working executable (debugging option) [default=no]
  --enable-werror         promote compiler warnings to errors, will cause
                          builds to fail if the compiler issues warnings
                          (debugging option) [default=no]
  --enable-strict-options enable strict options check between peers (debugging
                          option) [default=no]
  --enable-selinux        enable SELinux support [default=no]
  --enable-systemd        enable systemd support [default=no]
  --enable-async-push     enable async-push support for plugins providing
                          deferred authentication [default=no]

ENVIRONMENT for ./configure:

  PLUGINDIR   Path of plug-in directory [default=LIBDIR/openvpn/plugins]
  IFCONFIG    full path to ipconfig utility
  ROUTE       full path to route utility
  IPROUTE     full path to ip utility
  NETSTAT     path to netstat utility
  MAN2HTML    path to man2html utility
  GIT         path to git utility
  SYSTEMD_ASK_PASSWORD
              path to systemd-ask-password utility
  SYSTEMD_UNIT_DIR
              Path of systemd unit directory [default=LIBDIR/systemd/system]
  TMPFILES_DIR
              Path of tmpfiles directory [default=LIBDIR/tmpfiles.d]

ENVIRONMENT variables adjusting parameters related to dependencies

  TAP_CFLAGS  C compiler flags for tap
  LIBPAM_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for libpam
  LIBPAM_LIBS linker flags for libpam
  PKCS11_HELPER_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for PKCS11_HELPER, overriding pkg-config
  PKCS11_HELPER_LIBS
              linker flags for PKCS11_HELPER, overriding pkg-config
  OPENSSL_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for OpenSSL
  OPENSSL_LIBS
              linker flags for OpenSSL
  MBEDTLS_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for mbedtls
  MBEDTLS_LIBS
              linker flags for mbedtls
  LZO_CFLAGS  C compiler flags for lzo
  LZO_LIBS    linker flags for lzo
  LZ4_CFLAGS  C compiler flags for lz4
  LZ4_LIBS    linker flags for lz4
  libsystemd_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for libsystemd, overriding pkg-config
  libsystemd_LIBS
              linker flags for libsystemd, overriding pkg-config
  P11KIT_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for P11KIT, overriding pkg-config
  P11KIT_LIBS linker flags for P11KIT, overriding pkg-config

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Linux distribution packaging:

Each Linux distribution has their own way of doing packaging and their
own set of guidelines of how proper packaging should be done.  It
is therefore recommended to reach out to the Linux distributions you
want to have OpenVPN packaged for directly.  The OpenVPN project wants
to focus more on the OpenVPN development and less on the packaging
and how packaging is done in all various distributions.

For more details:

* Arch Linux
  https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=openvpn

* Debian
  https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=openvpn&searchon=names
  https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/openvpn

* Fedora / Fedora EPEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS/Scientific Linux)
  https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/openvpn/overview/
  https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/openvpn

* Gentoo
  https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/net-vpn/openvpn
  https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/net-vpn/openvpn

* openSUSE
  https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/network:vpn/openvpn

* Ubuntu
  https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=openvpn

In addition, the OpenVPN community provides a best-effort APT repository
for Debian and Ubuntu:
https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/OpenvpnSoftwareRepos

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TUN/TAP Driver Configuration:

* Linux 2.6 or higher (with integrated TUN/TAP driver):

  (1) load driver:              modprobe tun
  (2) enable routing:           echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

  Note that (1) needs to be done once per reboot.  If you install from RPM (see
  above) and use the openvpn.init script, these steps are taken care of for you.

* FreeBSD:

  FreeBSD ships with the TUN/TAP driver, and the device nodes for tap0,
  tap1, tap2, tap3, tun0, tun1, tun2 and tun3 are made by default.
  However, only the TUN driver is linked into the GENERIC kernel.

  To load the TAP driver, enter: 

	kldload if_tap

  See man rc(8) to find out how you can do this at boot time.

  The easiest way is to install OpenVPN from the FreeBSD ports system,
  the port includes a sample script to automatically load the TAP driver
  at boot-up time.

* OpenBSD:

  OpenBSD has dynamically created tun* devices so you only need
  to create an empty /etc/hostname.tun0 (tun1, tun2 and so on) for each tun
  you plan to use to create the device(s) at boot.

* Solaris:

  You need a TUN/TAP kernel driver for OpenVPN to work:

    http://www.whiteboard.ne.jp/~admin2/tuntap/

* Windows

  OpenVPN on Windows needs a TUN/TAP kernel driver to work. OpenVPN installers
  include this driver, so installing it separately is not usually required.
  Windows XP/2003 must use the NDIS 5 (tap-windows) driver, whereas on more
  recent Windows versions it is recommended to use the NDIS 6 driver
  (tap-windows6) instead.

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CAVEATS & BUGS:

* I have noticed cases where TCP sessions tunneled over the Linux
  TAP driver (kernel 2.4.21 and 2.4.22) stall when lower --mssfix
  values are used.  The TCP sessions appear to unstall and resume
  normally when the remote VPN endpoint is pinged.

* If run through a firewall using OpenBSDs packet filter PF and the
  filter rules include a "scrub" directive, you may get problems talking
  to Linux hosts over the tunnel, since the scrubbing will kill packets
  sent from Linux hosts if they are fragmented. This is usually seen as
  tunnels where small packets and pings get through but large packets
  and "regular traffic" don't. To circumvent this, add "no-df" to
  the scrub directive so that the packet filter will let fragments with
  the "dont fragment"-flag set through anyway.

* Mixing OFB or CFB cipher modes with static key mode is not recommended,
  and is flagged as an error on OpenVPN versions 1.2.1 and greater.
  If you use the --cipher option to explicitly select an OFB or CFB
  cipher AND you are using static key mode, it is possible that there
  could be an IV collision if the OpenVPN daemons on both sides
  of the connection are started at exactly the same time, since
  OpenVPN uses a timestamp combined with a sequence number as the cipher
  IV for OFB and CFB modes.  This is not an issue if you are
  using CBC cipher mode (the default), or if you are using OFB or CFB
  cipher mode with SSL/TLS authentication.