How to Connect to PrivateTunnel.com Service Under Ubuntu 11.10

[z3r0-1]

This tutorial will explain how to connect to the VPN service “PrivateTunnel.com” using Ubuntu 11.10's default network manager (“nm-connection-manager”).

• Install “openvpn” and “network-manager-openvpn-gnome”
  
  • Search for them under the Ubuntu Software Center, or...
  • Run the following commands in your favourite CLI:
    
    • “sudo apt-get install openvpn”
      “sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn-gnome”
    
    
  
  
• Download your PrivateTunnel.com user profile
  
  • Login to https://www.privatetunnel.com/
  • Click on “my account”
  • Find the section that reads “Download User Profile” and click on the link to download your profile. It will be named “client.ovpn”
  
  

• Open client.ovpn with a text editor. Export the “User Certificate” “CA Certificate” “Private Key” and the “Key File” to individual text files:
  
  • Look through your “client.ovpn” file and find the <ca> </ca> tags. Copy that section into a text file named “CA.pem” (Don't include the tags).
  • Look through your “client.ovpn” file and find the <cert> </cert> tags. Copy that section into a text file named “UC.pem” (Don't include the tags).
  • Look through your “client.ovpn” file and find the <key> </key> tags. Copy that section into a text file named “PK.pem” (Don't include the tags).
  • Look through your “client.ovpn” file and find the <tls-auth> </tls-auth> tags. Copy that section into a text file named “tls-auth.key” (Don't include the tags).
  • Now move CA.pem, UC.pem, PK.pem, tls-auth.key, and client.ovpn to /etc/openvpn
  
  
• Create a new VPN connection to PrivateTunnel.com
  
  • Click on the network icon (in the taskbar)>VPN Connections>Configure VPN... or you can open the Network Connections by pressing ALT-F2 and typing “nm-connection-editor”
  • Go to the VPN tab and click “Add”. It's going to ask for your connection type. Choose “OpenVPN” as your connection type. Name it PrivateTunnel.com
  
  
• Enter the following configuration settings:
  
  • Gateway: us.shieldexchange.com
  • Type: “Certificates (TLS)”
  • User Certificate: use your “UC.pem” file
  • CA Certificate: use your “CA.pem” file
  • Private Key: use your “PK.pem” file
  • Private Key Password: use the password for PrivateTunnel.com
  • Click on Advanced...
    
    • Enable the following options:
      
      • Use custom gateway port: 1194
      • Use custom renegotiation interval 604800
      • Use LZO data compression
      
      
    • Under the “TLS Authentication” tab...
      
      • enable “Use additional TLS authentication”
      • Key file: use your “tls-auth.key” file
      • Key direction: 1
      • Click OK
      • Un-check “Available to all users” (or if you want to have the VPN connection available to all users, leave it checked)
      • Click Save...
      
      
    
    
  
  

And you're done. You should now be able to connect to the PrivateTunnel.com VPN without touching the command line.
You can connect by clicking on the network icon>VPN Connections>PrivateTunnel.com

[xylo04]

Thanks! These instructions worked for me in 12.10 Quantal Quetzal, with the following modifications:

1. Now move CA.pem, UC.pem, PK.pem, tls-auth.key, and client.ovpn to /etc/openvpn

   From my limited experience with PKI, I'm guessing that at least some of the .ovpn, .pem and .key files are sensitive. If you're not going to allow other users on the computer to connect with the VPN, it's probably advisable to not put them in /etc/openvpn. I put them in my home directory under ~/.ovpn, and locked down the file system permissions with

   chmod 700 .ovpn

   and

   chmod 400 *.key *.pem *.ovpn

2. Gateway: us.shieldexchange.com

   That gateway URL didn't work for me and gave me an error (something about incorrect VPN secrets), so I used the gateway URL listed in my .ovpn file, which happened to be us-ca-sj-001.privatetunnel.com.

Otherwise, it's working great! I'm posting over it now. Thanks again, z3r0-1!

[lisati]

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