I’am trying to set up a OpenVPN Server on a Ubuntu LTS machine which is on my homenetwork. But as I read the documentation I noticed that under point 2 of the instructions you’ll be redirected to a login page. Which brings me to two questions:
Is an OpenVPN Access Server the right thing? I want to host a Server, that I can connect my phone from anywhere to my homenetwork. Or is the “AS” a paid product and there is another server product i can use which is free?
If this is the right product, do I really need an account?
I’ve been doing what you intend to do for the past 6 years. Having a real computer running Ubuntu always powered on will draw a lot of power for a very small purpose that you will not always be using. I highly recommend you get a Raspberry Pi for this. It runs Raspberry Pi OS, which is a fork of Debian, on which Ubuntu is based. Raspberry Pi OS, in its lite version, runs without a GUI, which is perfect to run a small and power efficient server. Also, the later version of the installer for that OS makes deploying a breeze. If you mess up somewhere, reinstalling only takes a few minutes now. Once you have that, all you’re going to need is to install pivpn, which is based on OpenVPN. It’s really easy to set up and use as it is pretty well documented. Once your VPN is up and running, you will need to make it generate a certificate which you will then load up in the application of the client you’re going to use in order to connect to your home network (I use my phone for that but you can do it from a computer if you wish, as long as you have the OpenVPN application installed and the certificate you generated on your server). Good luck
The OpenVPN Access Server will provide a great interface that is extremely easy to use and will make all of it very simple, but it will allow only two connections in the free version. I don’t remember exactly what it means: if you can still create more than two client certificates or not. I installed it once for curiosity, but didn’t follow through.
The Community edition is totally free, and you can use it anyway you want, but you will need to deal with a terminal. I don’t know if there exists some tool to provide a GUI. I don’t know about any decent, current tutorial.
You’re welcome. Let me know if you run into any problems, I completely reinstalled my Raspberry Pi a couple of months ago so I might be able to send you some relevant tutorials about setting up pivpn.
You’re welcome. I think you should go for the Community version, the kind of thing that people and companies in general can use in their own servers. It will be trickier, but you will learn a lot of interesting things.
Your so-called this is still the wrong place to go. Find everything from the link I sent you above. That is the door to the community version with strong community support. OpenVPN is open-source software. The link you sent is a commercial version. The OpenVPN community version is free and easy to use.
JFTR, OpenVPN Access Server comes with 2 simultaneously connected devices for free. To have more devices connected at the same time you need a paid subscription. There is also an alternative, to use a “cloud managed OpenVPN server”, where you only deploy clients, this is called CloudConnexa; this allows 3 devices connected at the same time for free.
