OpenVPN GUI for Windows¶

• Table of contents
• OpenVPN GUI for Windows

To install OpenVPN GUI for Windows on a Microsoft Windows XP 32/64 bits, follow the steps below:

1) Download the installer from the URL http://openvpn.se/download.html. Choose he file that contains the GUI and the OpenVPN software already included;
2) Start with the installation. Select the default options and confirm the installation of the TAP-Win32 Adapter V8 device (it is a Virtual Ethernet interface used by OpenVPN).
3) When the Installer has finished to work, the TrayBar contains the VPN icon with two red terminals and the Earth Globe symbol. Such terminals are yellow when OpenVPN is trying to establish the connection and they are green when you are finally connected with the VPN;
4) In the Windows Start Menu, click on [Start]->[All Programs]->[OpenVPN]->[OpenVPN configuration file directory]. You will be able to explore the folder:

C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config

in which you must copy the files ciop.ovpn that contains the OpenVPN configuration and CA.pem that is the X.509 Certification Authority certificate. You can look at the previous section for details on how to obtain these files;

At this point, you have finished to install and configure the OpenVPN client and its GUI. With a double-click on the OpenVPN icon in the Tray Bar, you can try to start the VPN connection. If the authentication step is successfully completed, then the VPN connection will be established and the two yellow terminals will become green.
By right-clicking on the OpenVPN icon in the Traybar appears a contextual menu with several useful options: Connect, Disconnect, Show Status, View Log, Edit Config, Proxy Settings. Particularly useful to solve connection problems is the item View Log that allows to know the reason of the failures.

If instead the VPN is connected (the two terminals are green), but you are not able to reach the remote LAN or Internet using the Virtual Private Network, then you should use the ipconfig /all command from the Windows Prompt. Here there is an example of the lines of output about the virtual Ethernet interface:

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 7:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : TUN-Win32 Adapter V8
        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-AD-63-83-3D
        Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
        Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.12.0.6
        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.12.0.1
        DHCP Server. . . . . . . . . . . .: 10.12.0.1
        DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.12.0.1
        Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 16 September 2012 19.51.37
        Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 17 September 2012 19.51.37
To be sure that the IP traffic is actually routed across the VPN and hence encrypted, you must check that the IP Address and the Default Gateway assigned to the TAP Virtual Interface belong to the remote LAN you are connected. To better check this condition, you could also use the tracert /d <Remote IP Address> command: if the first hop that is printed belongs to a subnet of the remote LAN then your VPN works fine and the traffic that reaches the remote site is encrypted across Internet.