Guidance on usage: SoftEther VPN Server Free VPN for Windows Server 2016 Datacenter on Amazon

Configuring and connecting to SoftEther VPN Server Free VPN for Windows Server 2016 Datacenter

For the VM to work, you need to open TCP 443, 992, 5555, and  UDP 1194, 500, and 4500 ports in the Security group in AWS Firefall.

Connecting to the Server

  1. To connect to the Server, you should generate a “Private Key” in advance. This can be done using Guidance on usage. To connect to the virtual machine, click the Remote desktop file from step 10 of the Guidance on usage
  1. In the window that appears, enter the password from step 12 of the Guidance on usage and click OK.
  1. Check the box and click Yes.

Running the server

  1. To start the VPN Server admin panel, you should open the app “SoftEther VPN Server Manager” on the desktop. 
  1. Connect to the server
  1. Enter the administrator password from the SoftEther_Credentials file and click OK
  1. Click OK in the “IP / L2TP / EtherIP / L2TPv3 Settings” window:
  1. Also, when creating each hub, you need to enable the Virtual NAT function. For this, you need to click “Manage Virtual Hub”:
  1. Open “Virtual NAT and Virtual DHCP Server (SecureNAT)”:
  1. Click “Enable SecureNAT”:

Adding new users

  1. To work with a VPN, you should first have a user to the app.

To create a new user click on the Manage Virtual Hub button:

  1. Then click on the “Manage Users” button:
  1. To create a new user, click  “New”.
  1. It’s necessary to insert the name of the user into the “User Name” field, type the password into the “Password” field, and verify it by re-entering the password into the “Confirm Password” field. After the data were entered, click “OK”.
  1. To change the user’s credentials, select the user and click “Edit”.

There is an existing user vpnuser. Its credentials are in the SoftEther_Credentials file

Creating a configuration file

  1. To create configuration files, click on the “OpenVPN / MS-SSTP Settings” button.
  1. Click on the “Generate a Sample Configuration File for OpenVPN Clients” button.
  1. When the window of the Windows Explorer is opened, select the path to save the archive:
  1. There are the following files in the saved archive:
  1. The file named “…_openvpn_remote_access_l3” needs to be saved on your local device

Creating a VPN Connection Using OpenVPN Client

  1. Run OpenVPN Connect. If you don’t have OpenVPN installed, you can download it here. 
  1. In the OpenVPN Connect window, specify the path to the file you unpacked from the archive and click “OK”.
  1. Click Connect
  1. If the connection is successful, a confirmation window will be displayed.

You can verify your IP address has changed by visiting What Is My IP both before and after connecting to OpenVPN.