IPSEC/L2TP VPN on Arch Linux on a Raspberry Pi with OpenSwan

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The Raspberry Pi is a great little small computer, both for tinkering but also as a low power 24/7 running homeserver system. I've got multiple Pi's, one running as my home VPN gateway. It is running an IPSEC/L2TP VPN server. This is a guide on setting up an IPSEC/L2TP vpn server with Arch Linux on the Raspberry Pi using Openswan as the IPsec server, xl2tpd as the l2tp provider and ppp or local users / PAM for authentication. It has a detailed explanation with every step. We choose the IPSEC/L2TP protocol stack because of recent vulnerabilities found in pptpd VPNs.

This tutorial is available for the following platforms:

This tutorial was tested on a Raspberry Pi running Arch Linux ARM, installed via NOOBS. It ran the current up to date Arch Linux ARM, here are the versions used:

• uname -a: Linux pi2.raymii.nl 3.10.25-1-ARCH #1 PREEMPT Mon Dec 23 16:07:25 MST 2013 armv6l GNU/Linux


• ipsec --version: Linux Openswan U2.6.39/K3.10.25-1-ARCH (netkey)


• xl2tpd -v: xl2tpd version: xl2tpd-1.3.1


• pppd --version: pppd version 2.4.5

IPSec encrypts your IP packets to provide encryption and authentication, so no one can decrypt or forge data between your clients and your server. L2TP provides a tunnel to send data. It does not provide encryption and authentication though, that is why we combine the two.

To work trough this tutorial you should have:

• 1 Raspberry Pi running Arch Linux ARM


• 1 (or more) clients running an OS that support IPsec/L2tp vpns (Ubuntu, Mac OS, Windows, Android).


• Ports 1701 TCP, 4500 UDP and 500 UDP opened in the firewall.

I do all the steps as the root user. You should do to, but only via sudo -i or su -. Do not allow root to login via SSH!

Read on for the full tutorial: https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/IPSEC_L2TP_vpn_on_a_Raspberry_Pi_with_Arch_Linux.html

LowEndTalk http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/19934/ipsec-l2tp-vpn-on-arch-linux-on-a-raspberry-pi-with-openswan IPSEC/L2TP VPN on Arch Linux on a Raspberry Pi with OpenSwan Web vps hosting server Linux - Windows webvps.blogspot.com