ESXi appliance installation/setup help: web interface woe

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phoyle
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ESXi appliance installation/setup help: web interface woe

Post by phoyle » Mon Jul 01, 2019 3:13 pm

Hi all

I've downloaded and installed the OVA to my ESXi server but I'm having trouble accessing the web interface to do any configuration.

I've followed the guide here : https://openvpn.net/vpn-server-resource ... _listening and it falls over at the point where we check the iptables. I get nothing as a result of that command.

Sadly the guide doesn't say what to do if that step fails. Everything else on the guide works, I can see the server is running using wget but I can't get to it from anywhere else on the network outside of the VM.

Does anyone have any guide on how iptables should be set up? I've googled about for a "default" state but only come across a few folk where there's dubious info with a few people saying their info was wrong, and I'm generally not too keen on getting firewall advice from random folk on random pages on the internet.

Sadly I'm not great with iptables and whatnot so could do with a hand, or a copy from someone who has successfully gotten the appliance to install and talk to the outside world.

Thanks.

vicenac
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Re: ESXi appliance installation/setup help: web interface woe

Post by vicenac » Wed Jul 10, 2019 11:02 pm

Have you tried connecting to the web UI with a machine that has the IP on the same subnet as the interface of the OpenVPN access server?

My assumption is that you may have a firewall between your machine the the OpenVPN server. That is my setup, since the Open VPN has to have its interface in the DMZ to be available for Internet access.

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novaflash
OpenVPN Inc.
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Re: ESXi appliance installation/setup help: web interface woe

Post by novaflash » Thu Jul 11, 2019 6:06 pm

Iptables and firewall settings are not something I would investigate to resolve this issue. Our ESXi image deployed on ESXi will just work and be reachable. There is no default settings that blocks this access.

So when the ESXi image is deployed and started up, you go into the virtual console, and log on with root / openvpnas. Then you say YES to the EULA and press enter a bunch of times to accept default settings. Now Access Server will be accessible via the web interface.

Now enter the command:
passwd openvpn
And set a password for the 'openvpn' admin user.

Check what the IP address is of this appliance with the command ifconfig

Then open that IP in your web browser from a computer that is attached to the same network that this ESXi server is also attached to. Then log on with the username 'openvpn' and the password you set.

And that's it.

So if something is not working, it is not iptables or a firewall in the appliance. Then you're just dealing with some weird issue related to ESXi networking. Try launching for example a Linux or Windows environment on the same ESXi server and try to open a browser there and accessing the Access Server VM through there.
I'm still alive, just posting under the openvpn_inc alias now as part of a larger group.

birdup
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Re: ESXi appliance installation/setup help: web interface woe

Post by birdup » Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:25 am

Has anyone been able to fix this problem i am having the same issue when deploying this image on ESXi

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openvpn_inc
OpenVPN Inc.
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Re: ESXi appliance installation/setup help: web interface woe

Post by openvpn_inc » Wed Mar 01, 2023 4:59 pm

Hello birdup,

Does your network provide an IP via DHCP to this system? If not, can you set a static IP on this system and restart?

Normally if you launch our image on a network that does DHCP it pretty much 'just works'. You SSH in and set a password and you login at the web interface. But if your network doesn't give an IP, yeah, then you need to arrange that.

Kind regards,
Johan
Image OpenVPN Inc.
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