From frustration to simplicity
Today, I set out to configure a remote access VPN for my small office. My first choice was L2TP/IPsec with StrongSwan and xl2tpd , mainly because it’s supported natively by Windows. It seemed like a solid option; secure and well-documented. But several hours later, after wading through IKE version mismatches, arcane config options, and ambiguous Windows error codes, I hit a wall. Despite correctly setting up IPsec and L2TP, Windows insisted on trying IKEv2, and StrongSwan repeatedly rejected the connections. Exhausted by endless logs and incompatible defaults, I decided to abandon the legacy stack and try something different: OpenVPN . In under ten minutes, using the widely respected OpenVPN install script by Angristan , I had a working VPN server. The script handled everything—certificates, firewall rules, user config—and generated a ready-to-go .ovpn file. I dropped it into OpenVPN Connect on Windows , hit "Connect", and just like that, it worked . Sometimes the best t...