blog.erik.rainey.name

I'm in a meeting where I'm using my business laptop. When I plunked it down on the table and cracked it open, it felt like I was opening one of those ancient laptops from the 80's where the keyboard sat about 3" off the table. This thing is thick, heavy and the keys feel oddly small. The screen is underwhelming and the contours of the casing are insipid. I had to remind my self that the touchpad even had a second button. I guess my macbookpro has really grown on me. ;)

I just got OpenVPN working on my MacBook Pro and I thought I'd share how it's done.

1. Download TunnelBlick 3.0 RC2 or better and install in /Applications/
2. Create your Root Certificate and Key, and all your client keys on the OpenVPN server (reference).
3. Copy the required files ca.crt and the client keys to ~/Library/openvpn/ on your Mac
4. Create a .conf file in that directory which will serve as your connection description. If your familiar with the Windows versions, be sure to name your dev items (usually "tun0") and your dev-node items (usually "/dev/tun0") correctly (see reference again for sample config files). Be sure to match the type of tunnel as with the type on your server (tcp to tcp, tun to tun, etc).
5. Expose the OpenVPN port (which is configurable on the server) to the outside, beyond the firewall.
6. Add entries into your hosts file to support name resolution over your tunnel, or setup a Split DNS Server.
7. Connect!

I can taste it.