path: root/INSTALL

Installation instructions for OpenVPN, a Secure Tunneling Daemon

Copyright (C) 2002-2010 OpenVPN Technologies, 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, go to:

    http://openvpn.net/download.html

OpenVPN releases are also available as Debian/RPM packages:

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

To download easy-rsa go to:

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

To download tap-windows (NDIS 5) driver source code go to:

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

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:

    http://openvpn.net/howto.html
    https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki

For examples see:

    http://openvpn.net/examples.html

Also see the man page for more information, usage examples, and information on
firewall configuration.

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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) PolarSSL library, an alternative for encryption, version 1.1 or higher
      required, available from https://polarssl.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 git://openvpn.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/openvpn/openvpn

  Check out stable version:

    git checkout -b 2.2 remotes/origin/release/2.2

  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 dist

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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]
  --enable-lzo-stub       don't compile LZO compression support but still
                          allow limited interoperability with LZO-enabled
                          peers [default=no]
  --disable-crypto        disable crypto support [default=yes]
  --disable-ssl           disable SSL support for TLS-based key exchange
                          [default=yes]
  --enable-x509-alt-username
                          enable the --x509-username-field feature
                          [default=no]
  --disable-multi         disable client/server support (--mode server +
                          client mode) [default=yes]
  --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-socks         disable Socks support [default=yes]
  --disable-http-proxy    disable HTTP proxy support [default=yes]
  --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=yes]
  --enable-password-save  allow --askpass and --auth-user-pass passwords to be
                          read from a file [default=yes]
  --enable-iproute2       enable support for iproute2 [default=no]
  --disable-def-auth      disable deferred authentication [default=yes]
  --disable-pf            disable internal packet filter [default=yes]
  --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-strict-options enable strict options check between peers (debugging
                          option) [default=no]
  --enable-selinux        enable SELinux support [default=no]
  --enable-systemd        enable systemd suppport [default=no]

ENVIRONMENT for ./configure:

  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
  TAP_CFLAGS  C compiler flags for tap
  OPENSSL_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for OpenSSL, overriding pkg-config
  OPENSSL_LIBS
              linker flags for OpenSSL, overriding pkg-config
  POLARSSL_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for polarssl
  POLARSSL_LIBS
              linker flags for polarssl
  LZO_CFLAGS  C compiler flags for lzo
  LZO_LIBS    linker flags for lzo
  PKCS11_HELPER_CFLAGS
              C compiler flags for PKCS11_HELPER, overriding pkg-config
  PKCS11_HELPER_LIBS
              linker flags for PKCS11_HELPER, overriding pkg-config

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BUILDING ON LINUX 2.6+ FROM RPM

You can build a binary RPM directly from the OpenVPN tarball file:

	rpmbuild -tb [tarball]

This command will build a binary RPM file and place it in the system
RPM directory.  You can then install the RPM with the standard RPM
install command:

	rpm -ivh [binary-rpm]

When you install the binary RPM, it will install
sample-scripts/openvpn.init, which can be used to
automatically start or stop one or more OpenVPN tunnels on system
startup or shutdown, based on OpenVPN .conf files in /etc/openvpn.
See the comments in openvpn.init for more information.

Installing the RPM will also configure the TUN/TAP device node
for linux 2.6.

Note that the current openvpn.spec file, which instructs the rpm tool
how to build a package, will build OpenVPN with all options enabled,
including OpenSSL, LZO, and pthread linkage.  Therefore all of
these packages will need to be present prior to the RPM build, unless
you edit the openvpn.spec file.

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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.