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by: Bernard Teo








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Copyright © 2003-2012
Bernard Teo
Some Rights Reserved.

Wed 18 Dec 2013

VPN Enabler 1.0.1

Category : Technology/VPNEnabler1dot0dot1.txt

I’ve updated VPN Enabler to make it more helpful. I’ve added a “Suggest IP Addresses” button. (Download VPN Enabler 1.0.1)

If you’re running VPN Enabler on the single machine, on the local network behind the router, that has all the Internet services loaded on it (e.g., web, mail, and dns server, all on one machine, which is quite a reasonable assumption for the user base that is running all my “enabler” apps), then when you click on that “Suggest IP Addresses” button, it’ll try to provide you with reasonable values that you can use.

These values are provided to an incoming VPN client, which is joining your private local network, so it’ll firstly be assigned an IP address within the range you provided, and then it’s told where to go for DNS services. Basically, the VPN Server acts like a DHCP Server for the incoming VPN clients.

VPNEnabler1dot0dot1.png

If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve added a Step 4. It reminds the user to set up the router to forward three known UDP ports (500, 1701, and 4500, used by VPNs) to the VPN Server’s IP address. If you had clicked the “Suggest IP Addresses” button, it’ll helpfully tell you the exact IP address of your VPN server machine. Enjoy! Really.

Posted at 11:21PM UTC | permalink

Let a Thousand VPN Servers Bloom

Category : Technology/VPNEnabler.txt

I’m releasing Version 1.0 of VPN Enabler (this is the download link). I used this to set up a VPN Server on OS X Mavericks before I went to China, so I can access Facebook, etc, while I was on wifi networks in Chengdu, Sichuan. As far as I can test myself, the VPN Server works (wonderfully, if I may add :)

VPNEnabler.png

Only three steps and one click. That’s all it takes to get your own VPN Server running. Of course, your Mac server must be accessible from the Internet. If you’re on a dynamic IP address, sign up with DNS providers like dyndns.org, and use my app, DNS Agent (for Mavericks), to keep your IP address in sync with your domain name, no matter how often that changes.

On the Mac client, set up your VPN configuration like this, in Network Preferences :

VPNClient1.png

Click the Authentication Settings… button:

VPNClient2.png

And click the Advanced… button to set the “Send all traffic over VPN connection” option:

VPNClient3.png

For iOS clients, look for Settings > General > VPN. Add a VPN Configuration:

iOSClient1.png

and, in the Add Configuration panel, do this:

iOSClient2.png

And that’s all there is to it. Enjoy!


Important Tech Note :

If you’re running the VPN Server on a local network behind a router, you need to set up your router to forward UDP (not TCP) ports 500, 1701, and 4500 to the IP address of your VPN Server.

This is not as difficult as it sounds. Your router (which might be bundled with a wifi base station) would have a setup page that you can access using a web browser. Look for the Port Forwarding setup page, which is probably lumped with the Firewall settings. Then use that setup page to create three port forwarding records to associate UDP ports 500, 1701, and 4500 with the local IP address of the Mac that is running your VPN Server. This way, when network traffic comes in from a VPN client, the router will know which machine to route them to for processing.

Posted at 1:37AM UTC | permalink

Mac@Work
Put your Mac to Work

• Sivasothi.com? Now how would you do something like that?
• Weblogs. Download and start a weblog of your own.
• A Mac Business Toolbox
A survey of the possibilities
• A Business Scenario
How we could use Macs in businesses
• VPN Enabler for Mavericks
• MailServe for Mavericks
• DNS Enabler for Mavericks
• DNS Agent for Mavericks
• WebMon for Mavericks
• Luca for Mavericks
• Liya for Mountain Lion & Mavericks
• Postfix Enabler for Tiger and Panther
• Sendmail Enabler for Jaguar

Services running on this server, a Mac Mini running Mac OS X 10.9.2 Mavericks:

  • Apache 2 Web Server
  • Postfix Mail Server
  • Dovecot IMAP Server
  • Fetchmail
  • SpamBayes Spam Filter
  • Procmail
  • BIND DNS Server
  • DNS Agent
  • WebDAV Server
  • VPN Server
  • PHP-based weblog
  • MySQL database
  • PostgreSQL database

all set up using MailServe, WebMon, DNS Enabler, DNS Agent, VPN Enabler, Liya and our SQL installers, all on Mavericks.