Why host OpenVPN Server on a VPS?
Shared commercial VPN solutions require trusting a third-party provider that can log, resell or expose your connection data. By hosting OpenVPN Server on your own VPS, you are the sole administrator: you choose the level of logging, the authorized users and the encryption protocols (TLS 1.3, AES-256-GCM). It is also the ideal solution to interconnect distributed teams, secure access to your internal services or bypass the network restrictions of a corporate environment, all at a controlled cost.
What you can do with OpenVPN Server
- Secure the connections of your remote-working staff with an encrypted tunnel to your internal network
- Expose your internal services (databases, back office, monitoring tools) only via VPN, without opening them to the Internet
- Interconnect several sites or offices in a site-to-site virtual private network
- Protect your communications on public or untrusted Wi-Fi networks
- Finely manage access rights per user thanks to the OpenVPN certificate system
- Audit and log connections coming into your infrastructure from a centralized point under your control
Install OpenVPN Server on your ServOrbit VPS
Order a ServOrbit Cloud VPS
Go to the /vps-cloud page and choose a plan suited to your usage. For a personal OpenVPN server or for a small team (up to 10 simultaneous users), an instance with 1 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM is more than enough. Select your server's location, then finalize the order. Your VPS is ready in under a minute.
Access the Marketplace in the client area
Log in to your ServOrbit client area, navigate to the section dedicated to your VPS, then open the Marketplace tab. There you will find the list of applications available for 1-click installation, organized by category. Search for the Security category or type « OpenVPN » directly in the search bar.
Start the OpenVPN Server installation
Click the OpenVPN Server tile, then the « Install » button. The system automatically deploys OpenVPN Access Server on your VPS (based on the official openvpn-as package). The installation configures an OpenVPN daemon listening by default on UDP port 1194 for client tunnels and exposes a secure web administration interface (HTTPS) on port 943.
Access the administration interface
Once the installation is complete, open your browser and go to https://<IP-de-votre-VPS>:943/admin. The default administration credentials are provided to you in the installation summary of the ServOrbit client area (usually the openvpn user with a randomly generated password). Change this password immediately from the Admin UI > User Management > Change Password interface.
Create your first VPN users and download the client profile
From the Admin UI, create your user accounts in the User Management section. Each user can then connect to the client portal at https://<IP-de-votre-VPS>:943 to download their connection profile (.ovpn) or install the OpenVPN Connect client directly. On Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, simply import this profile file to establish the VPN tunnel in one click.
By default, OpenVPN Access Server allows 2 simultaneous connections for free (free license included). To go further without additional license fees, favor the community version OpenVPN (openvpn package) with EasyRSA for certificate management: it does not limit the number of clients and is fully controllable from the command line. Also remember to open only UDP port 1194 (or TCP 443 to get through restrictive firewalls) in your VPS security rules, and to enable fail2ban to protect the administration interface against abusive connection attempts.
The official documentation
For advanced configuration, tool-specific options and version changes, refer to the official OpenVPN Community documentation. This guide covers going live on a ServOrbit VPS; the vendor documentation remains the reference for fine-tuning.
