OSX and OpenVPN

I really like [stag]OpenVPN[/stag] it allows me to have a very simple [stag]VPN[/stag] solution, and it runs on standard ports (80, 443), which means that it can penetrate proxy's and firewalls (don't tell security people please).

Now installing it on [stag]OSX[/stag] can be a bit anoying, as there are not prebuild binaries (that I can find), but fear not, as there is help for that.

[stag]DarwinPorts[/stag] is a project to provide opensource software for the Mac, and it works very very well. It requires Xcode (OSX development environment).

To get OpenVPN installed you need to do following steps;

1) install [stag]xcode[/stag] (download, open dmg, and do the install)
2) install darwinports (download, open dmg, and do the install), you can download the sourcecode, and use that for install.
3) use darwinports to install openvpn:
- open a terminal (I use iTerm, which is nicer)
# sudo port install openvpn2
....
---> Building openvpn2 with target all
---> Staging openvpn2 into destroot
---> Installing openvpn2 2.0.9_0+darwin_8
---> Activating openvpn2 2.0.9_0+darwin_8
---> Cleaning openvpn2
#

And you're done, with openvpn excpet for a very small issue. It does not install the tun/tap driver, which you need to get from here.

1) download the code (link is for experimental Tiger version) and save it in a temp directory
2) extract the file:
# tar zxfv tuntap_tiger_20060513.tar.gz
....
3) read the README, and README.installer
4) depending on weather you want to use tun or tap install tap_kext.pkg or tun_kext.pkg and startup_item.pkg - or just use the tuntap_installer.mpkg which will do everything.

And you're done.

Now copy your certificates and client configuration file to your Mac and run openvpn2:

# sudo openvpn2 client.conf

You have to use sudo, as you need root privileges to create interfaces.