VPN Server PPTP/L2TP-IPSec-PSK on Linux/Debian

Launch the server. This server does not require the powerful computing resources; you can choose a simple instance type. If the Elastic IP was assigned to a running instance, the instance must be restarted.

Linux username: admin

After launching, the VPN server becomes immediately fully operational with no additional setup required.

This server supports VPN connections:

• PPTP (login, password)
• L2TP without IPSec (login, password)
• L2TP/IPSec-PSK (login, password, PSK).

When the server is first started, a Pre-Shared Key (PSK) is generated. This key should be specified in the settings on client devices for L2TP/IPSec-PSK connections. This PSK key is the same for all users. You can find PSK with help of SSH on a Linux welcome screen or you can find it in the file "/etc/ipsec.secrets". You can change it, if needed.

User management Web Panel:

• https://[Public IP address]
• use "administrator" as username and your instance ID as password.

Initially, the database of VPN users contains 1 user named "testuser" with randomly generated password.

When accessing the Control Panel using the HTTPS protocol, your web browser may display a warning about potential risks due to the use of IP address in the URL. In this case, you should proceed and accept the risks, as our goal is to encrypt traffic, and there is no reason to worry about using IP address in a web browser.

Web panel description:

• https://www.adeoclouds.eu/webpanel.php?server=2 

As an additional option, this server supports direct user management through MySQL (port 3306, username: remote, password is your instance ID, database: radius, table: radcheck - list of users, table: radusergroup - access status for users). By default, port 3306 is not enabled in the security group. To be able to remotely edit the database, you need to add port 3306 to the security group. For security reasons, it is recommended to allow access to this port only from specific IP addresses.

Please note that in order to establish L2TP/IPSec-PSK connection from a client on Windows, you may need to make changes to the Windows registry, otherwise Windows error code 809 or 789 may appear. To fix it:

• in section "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\PolicyAgent" please create DWORD (32 bit) parameter "AssumeUDPEncapsulationContextOnSendRule" and set value 2 for it.
• in section "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RasMan\Parameters" set parameter "ProhibitIPSec" to 0.
• restart Windows.

For Windows computers, we recommend our utility to easily create a VPN connection in one click:

• https://www.adeoimaging.com/vpn_connector.php 

As an additional server management tool, you can use phpMyAdmin:

• https://[Public IP address]/phpmyadmin/
• use "administrator" as username and your instance ID as password.
• By default, access to phpMyAdmin is denied in file "/usr/share/phpmyadmin/.htaccess"

Please note:

Despite the fact that this server supports VPN connection via the L2TP without IPSec, it should be noted that such VPN tunnel can not be considered as secure. Therefore, we recommend using L2TP-IPSec-PSK or PPTP on client devices instead of L2TP without IPSec, if possible.

It should be noted that the simultaneous connections to the VPN server of several Windows client devices that located behind a single NAT router may not work with L2TP-IPSec-PSK. In this case, we recommend to use PPTP connection for each Windows device. There are no such problems for Android, iOS or Linux client devices.