piratebriggs / setup-ipsec-vpn

Scripts to build your own IPsec VPN server, with IPsec/L2TP and Cisco IPsec on Ubuntu, Debian and CentOS

Unencrypted L2TP Server Auto Setup Scripts

This is a fork of https://github.com/hwdsl2/setup-ipsec-vpn with the IPSec component removed.

Set up your own Unencrypted L2TP server in just a few minutes, on Ubuntu or Debian. All you need to do is provide your own VPN credentials, and let the scripts handle the rest.

An L2TP tunnel does not encrypt your traffic but will allow you to bypass cgNAT if you are on a LTE connection.

We will use xl2tpd as the L2TP provider.

Table of Contents

• Quick start
• Requirements
• Installation
• Next steps
• Important notes
• Upgrade Libreswan
• Bugs & Questions
• Uninstallation
• See also
• License

Quick start

First, prepare your Linux server* with a fresh install of Ubuntu LTS, Debian or CentOS.

Use this one-liner to set up an IPsec VPN server:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/piratebriggs/setup-ipsec-vpn/master/vpnsetup.sh -O vpnsetup.sh && sudo sh vpnsetup.sh

Your VPN login details will be randomly generated, and displayed on the screen when finished.

For other installation options and how to set up VPN clients, read the sections below.

* A dedicated server or virtual private server (VPS). OpenVZ VPS is not supported.

Requirements

A newly created Amazon EC2 instance, from one of these images:

• Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic) or 16.04 (Xenial)
• Debian 10 (Buster)*, 9 (Stretch) or 8 (Jessie)

Please see detailed instructions and EC2 pricing.

-OR-

A dedicated server or KVM/Xen-based virtual private server (VPS), freshly installed with one of the above OS. OpenVZ VPS is not supported, users could instead try OpenVPN.

This also includes Linux VMs in public clouds, such as DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, Google Compute Engine, Amazon Lightsail, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, OVH and Rackspace.

⚠️ DO NOT run these scripts on your PC or Mac! They should only be used on a server!

Installation

Ubuntu & Debian

First, update your system with apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade and reboot. This is optional, but recommended.

To install the VPN, please choose one of the following options:

Option 1: Have the script generate random VPN credentials for you (will be displayed when finished):

wget https://git.io/vpnsetup -O vpnsetup.sh && sudo sh vpnsetup.sh

Option 2: Edit the script and provide your own VPN credentials:

wget https://git.io/vpnsetup -O vpnsetup.sh
nano -w vpnsetup.sh
[Replace with your own values: YOUR_IPSEC_PSK, YOUR_USERNAME and YOUR_PASSWORD]
sudo sh vpnsetup.sh

Note: A secure IPsec PSK should consist of at least 20 random characters.

Option 3: Define your VPN credentials as environment variables:

# All values MUST be placed inside 'single quotes'
# DO NOT use these special characters within values: \ " '
wget https://git.io/vpnsetup -O vpnsetup.sh && sudo \
VPN_USER='your_vpn_username' \
VPN_PASSWORD='your_vpn_password' \
sh vpnsetup.sh

Note: If unable to download via wget, you may also open vpnsetup.sh (or vpnsetup_centos.sh) and click the Raw button. Press Ctrl-A to select all, Ctrl-C to copy, then paste into your favorite editor.

Next steps

Get your computer or device to use the VPN. Please refer to:

Configure IPsec/L2TP VPN Clients

Configure IPsec/XAuth ("Cisco IPsec") VPN Clients

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Set Up IKEv2 VPN

If you get an error when trying to connect, see Troubleshooting.

Enjoy your very own VPN! ✨🎉🚀✨

For servers with an external firewall (e.g. EC2/GCE), open UDP ports 500 and 4500 for the VPN. Aliyun users, see #433.

If you wish to add, edit or remove VPN user accounts, see Manage VPN Users. Helper scripts are included for convenience.

Clients are set to use Google Public DNS when the VPN is active. If another DNS provider is preferred, replace 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in both /etc/ppp/options.xl2tpd and /etc/ipsec.conf, then reboot your server. Advanced users can define VPN_DNS_SRV1 and optionally VPN_DNS_SRV2 when running the VPN setup script.

Using kernel support could improve IPsec/L2TP performance. It is available on Ubuntu 18.04/16.04, Debian 10/9 and CentOS 8/7/6. Ubuntu users: Install linux-modules-extra-$(uname -r) (or linux-image-extra), then run service xl2tpd restart.

To modify the IPTables rules after install, edit /etc/iptables.rules and/or /etc/iptables/rules.v4 (Ubuntu/Debian), or /etc/sysconfig/iptables (CentOS/RHEL). Then reboot your server.

When connecting via IPsec/L2TP, the VPN server has IP 192.168.42.1 within the VPN subnet 192.168.42.0/24.

The scripts will backup existing config files before making changes, with .old-date-time suffix.

See also

• IPsec VPN Server Auto Setup Scripts - The origin of this fork
• IPsec VPN Server on Docker
• Algo VPN
• Streisand
• OpenVPN Install

License

Copyright (C) 2014-2020 Lin Song
Based on the work of Thomas Sarlandie (Copyright 2012)

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Attribution required: please include my name in any derivative and let me know how you have improved it!