Skip to content

point-to-site-vpn-client-certificate-openvpn-linux.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
61 lines (39 loc) · 3.63 KB

point-to-site-vpn-client-certificate-openvpn-linux.md

File metadata and controls

61 lines (39 loc) · 3.63 KB
title Configure P2S VPN clients - certificate authentication - OpenVPN - Linux
titleSuffix Azure Virtual WAN
description Learn how to configure a Linux VPN client solution for Virtual WAN P2S configurations that use certificate authentication and an OpenVPN client.
author cherylmc
ms.service azure-virtual-wan
ms.custom linux-related-content
ms.topic how-to
ms.date 02/06/2025
ms.author cherylmc

Configure OpenVPN client for User VPN P2S certificate authentication connections - Linux

This article helps you connect to your Azure virtual network (VNet) using Virtual WAN User VPN (point-to-site) and Certificate authentication from Linux using an OpenVPN client.

Before you begin

Verify that you are on the correct article. The following table shows the configuration articles available for Azure Virtual WAN P2S VPN clients. Steps differ, depending on the authentication type, tunnel type, and the client OS.

[!INCLUDE P2S client configuration articles]

Prerequisites

This article assumes that you completed the following prerequisites:

  • You configured a virtual WAN according to the steps in the Create a User VPN point-to-site connection article. Your User VPN configuration must use certificate authentication and the IKEv2 tunnel type.
  • You generated and downloaded the VPN client configuration files. For steps to generate a VPN client profile configuration package, see Generate VPN client configuration files.
  • You have permissions to either generate client certificates, or acquire the appropriate client certificates necessary for authentication.

Connection requirements

To connect to Azure using the OpenVPN client using certificate authentication, each connecting client requires the following items:

  • The Open VPN Client software must be installed and configured on each client.
  • The client must have the correct certificates installed locally.

Workflow

The workflow for this article is:

  1. Install the OpenVPN client.
  2. View the VPN client profile configuration files contained in the VPN client profile configuration package that you generated.
  3. Configure the OpenVPN client.
  4. Connect to Azure.

About certificates

For certificate authentication, a client certificate must be installed on each client computer. The client certificate you want to use must be exported with the private key, and must contain all certificates in the certification path. Additionally, for some configurations, you'll also need to install root certificate information.

The OpenVPN client in this article uses certificates exported with a .pfx format. You can export a client certificate easily to this format using the Windows instructions. See Export a client certificate - pfx. If you don't have a Windows computer, as a workaround, you can use a small Windows VM to export certificates to the needed .pfx format. At this time, the OpenSSL Linux instructions we provide only result in the .pem format.

Configuration steps

This section helps you configure Linux clients for certificate authentication that uses the OpenVPN tunnel type. To connect to Azure, download the OpenVPN client and configure the connection profile.

[!INCLUDE Configuration steps for OpenVPN Linux]

Next steps

For additional steps, return to the Create a Virtual WAN P2S User VPN connection article.