Wanted to put a VPN gateway into a Docker container. Turned out to be difficult since the container needs to accept ESP traffic for IPSec, which I could not make work.
However running a SoftEther VPN server turns out to be easier than expected: Have the binaries, and a vpn_server.config file, and off you go. To create the config file, use the Windows management utility.
On the client side it’s rather simple. Windows client software is neat and straightforward. Linux is not much harder:
# Download softether-vpnclient-v4.19-9599-beta-2015.10.19-linux-arm_eabi-32bit.tar.gz to e.g. /var/tmp/ cd /usr tar xfv /var/tmp/ softether-vpnclient-v4.19-9599-beta-2015.10.19-linux-arm_eabi-32bit.tar.gz cd vpnclient make i_read_and_agree_the_license_agreement ./vpnclient start ./vpncmd 2 (Management of VPN Client) ENTER (picks localhost) NicCreate VIRTUALNIC (e.g. box2) AccountCreate ACCOUNTNAME (e.g. box2) vpn.domain.org:443 (VPN Server Host Name and Port Number) VIRTUALHUBNAME (e.g. Box2Hub) USERNAME (e.g. harald) box2 (Virtual NIC) # AccountPasswordSet ACCOUNTNAME PASSWORD (password for USERNAME) PASSWORD (repeat) standard (standard or Radius) # # Autostart: AccountStartupSet ACCOUNTNAME # Connect: AccountConnect ACCOUNTNAME # Check AccountStatusGet ACCOUNTNAME
And that’s it. It’ll create a virtual NIC vpn_box2 and whenever you start vpnclient, it’ll create it and connect.
E.g. have this in /etc/rc.local:
( /usr/bin/vpnclient start ; sleep 10 ; ifconfig vpn_box2 192.168.30.51 netmask 255.255.255.0 up ) &
or alternatively if you can take any IP address:
( /usr/vpnclient/vpnclient start ; sleep 10 ; dhclient vpn_box2 ) &
In case of slow connection/computers, increase the 10s delay to more. I use 20s for my AllWinner A20 CPUs.