Linux Networking Cookbook

10.5. Setting Up a Standalone PPTP VPN Server

Problem

You have a small gaggle of Windows clients on your LAN, and no Windows servers, so you want to set up a Linux VPN server running Poptop to allow remote access to your LAN. You've already installed Poptop on your favorite Linux distribution on a machine with at least two network interfaces. Networking is configured and ready to go.

Solution

Your Windows clients should have all received their necessary updates. (See the chapter Introduction to learn more about these.)

Now, you will edit three files:

/etc/pptpd.conf

/etc/ppp/pptpd-options (Debian)

/etc/ppp/options.pptpd (Fedora)

/etc/ppp/chap-secrets

Here are complete examples of all three:

	##/etc/pptpd.conf
	option /etc/ppp/pptpd-options
	logwtmp
	localip 192.168.0.10
	remoteip 192.168.0.100-254
	##/etc/ppp/pptpd-options/- /etc/ppp/options.pptpd
	name pptpd
	refuse-pap
	refuse-chap
	refuse-mschap
	require-mschap-v2
	require-mppe-128
	proxyarp
	nodefaultroute
	debug
	dump
	lock
	nobsdcomp
	novj
	novjccomp
	nologfd

	##/etc/ppp/chap-secret
	# a single client for testing
	# client    server    secret   IP addresses
	foober    pptpd   password     *

Copy these exactly, with these exceptions:

/etc/pptpd.conf

Use your own addressing for localip and remoteip. These values are arbitrary. They must be on different networks from your LAN.

/etc/ppp/chap-secrets

This file holds your usernames and passwords. The server name comes from the name line in /etc/ppp/pptpd-options.

Now, start up your pptpd server:

	# /etc/init.d/pptpd stop # /etc/init.d/pptpd ...