OVERVIEW
We've spared no effort in making the ArrowDot OpenVPN appliance easy to set up.
In fact, we believe it might be the easiest VPN setup in the world.
This tutorial will guide you through the simple steps necessary to get you up and
running as quickly as possible.
We also maintain a database of
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
If you experience any difficulty or have questions not covered by this tutorial, please follow the
link
to our
FAQ Database as your question is very likely to have been dealt with in there.
The setup process involves:
-
Installing the ArrowDot appliance on a computer on your network
(the network that you would like to be able to remotely connect into)
-
Installing client software on each computer you would like be able to connect from
Please follow the links on the left hand side of this page for more detail on each of these steps.
INSTALL VMWARE
The ArrowDot OpenVPN Appliance requires a VMWare product such as VMWare Player (don't worry, it is available for FREE). The simplest way to get started is to use
VMWare Player version 2.5+.
The latest version of VMWare Player can be downloaded free of charge from the VMWare web site:
http://www.vmware.com/download/player/
There are a number of download options. Windows users must download the exe file.
The VMWare Player setup is straightforward. Just leave all the setup options set to their defaults.
INSTALL THE APPLIANCE
The appliance is packaged as a self-extracting executable.
To install your OpenVPN Appliance, simply double-click the
setup.exe
file.
You'll need about 5 GB free on
your hard drive for the extraction process to be successful, but once the device is
installed it only requires about 2 Gigabyte of hard drive space.
The running virtual machine is allocated 128 MB of RAM.
**Due to the size of the file, the installation process may take a couple of minutes.
START THE APPLIANCE
Once the setup process has completed, you should find
a shortcut labeled "ArrowDotOpenVPNServer" on your desktop.
Double-click this icon to start your OpenVPN device. You will be presented
with the VMWare Player Console.
The boot process may take a few minutes as the device detects information about your
network and downloads any required updates from ArrowDot. Depending on your hardware
you might get some warnings about the device not being able to "connect to some default device".
These warnings refer to non-essential devices (e.g. sound cards) and can be ignored.
When the boot process has completed, you should be presented with a black screen with
some text. The text will ask you to point your web browser to an address starting
with
http://
and followed by an IP address (a set of 4 numbers seperated by periods).
Open your web browser and type in the address displayed.
Additional Notes:
-
If you click your mouse within the borders of the virtual device screen
(the black area on your screen), VMWare will "grab" control of your mouse.
To release your mouse, simply hold down the "Ctrl" and "Alt" keys simultaneously
and then release them. Your mouse pointer will resume normal operation.
This is normal behaviour.
-
You may notice a message indicating that "Your version of VMware Tools is out of date."
This message can be safely ignored.
ACTIVATE YOUR DEVICE
In the last step, your VPN device provided you with an IP address to point
your web browser to. Please type this IP address into the address bar of your
browser and press enter.
Your web browser will now present your with the ArrowDot device administration
pages. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to activate your device. By now you
should have received your activation code.
Note:
During the online registration process you will have been
sent an email from ArrowDot containing your activation code.
Please check your junk mail folder if you have not yet received this email.
CREATE CLIENTS
Once you have completed the registration process, you will be presented with a
link to "Create Clients". When you click on this link, you will be prompted for
the email and password you provided during the activation process.
Upon authenticating yourself with the login details you provided, you will be
directed to the client creation page. Now just follow the on-screen instructions
to create VPN clients.
You will need to create and install a separate client for each computer
that needs remote access to your network.
Next we will look at how to install the client files.
CONNECT CLIENTS
At this point we assume you have created some vpn clients. The created clients will
be listed on the client creation page. Next to each client is a "Download Windows installer" link.
Clicking on this link should pop up your browser's download dialogue. Now download the client file.
The downloaded file is a single Windows executable (.exe) file. This file has been
customized for
the client you selected.
Once you have downloaded the VPN client file, transfer it to the computer you want to have remote access to
your network.
After you have copied the executable to the machine requiring remote access, double click the file and follow
the installation instructions. Windows Vista users should right-click on the file, then left click on
the "Run as administrator" option.
You will receive a warning about the TAP driver being unsigned by Microsoft. It is safe to ignore this warning
and to click OK.
When the installation completes, look for this icon in the bottom right hand side of your screen.
To connect this client to your VPN server you need to right-click on this icon, then select the Country
you are connecting to and click 'Connect'. See the picture on the right.
The icon will become yellow, and then settle on green once the client has successfully connected.
USE YOUR VPN
Clients connected to your VPN will be able to perform any of the activities they
are able to perform while connected physically to your network. For further
information on some of the most popular of these activities please click on one
of the links below:
-
Work on one of the computers at the office (Remote desktop)
-
Connect to a file share Access office email
Unpack
Create clients
Connect Clients
Remote desktop
