Windows 7 OpenVPN Setup

[mcoad]

I am trying to set up a VPN for the first time. I have a little networking knowledge, but not a lot. I do have an extensive background in systems (including UNIX) however.

I cannot get out of the blocks here in Windows 7. First, I downloaded OpenVPN 2.2.2 for Windows and installed it on my system. When I started looking at the configuration files and batch files in the "easy-rsa" folder, I quickly realized that nothing was going to work. The files contained no DOS carriage returns at the end of the lines when viewed in Notepad. I recognized this problem right away. When you create a text file in UNIX and want to use it in Windows, you need to convert the UNIX-based line feed characters to DOS-based, or the resulting file is unusable in Windows. So, I uninstalled OpenVPN 2.2.2.

Next, I downloaded OpenVPN 2.3-alpha3, and I was pleased to see the line-feed problem was fixed. However, I got as far as trying to generate the master CA certificate and key. I ran vars.bat successfully (although I didn't know how to customize it, so I left the default values). Then, when I ran build-ca.bat, I got the following error:

WARNING: can't open config file: /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf

I recognize this as a UNIX path, so I don't understand why it is included in the Windows version of OpenVPN. I feel like it's going to take me forever to get this thing working. I'm really just trying to set up a VPN to some servers in England so I can connect to the BBC web site and watch the taped videos of the Olympics (site is barred from US-based traffic). I even tried using TunnelBear, which is a pay VPN service, and it does work, however their server is so slow that watching athletic events is pretty much impossible.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Michael in Florida

[Mimiko]

There is no problem to run batch files with only LF like in Unix under Windows. You can use Notepad++ for example to see those files normal.

You can ignore taht warning and generate certificates as always.