iii) Hardware, Software & Docs Used
An aggregation of hardware, software products and tools and documentation resources were used to achieve the VPN connectivity documented in this blog.
Hardware and Software
- iPhones: model 4S, 16 32 GB, iOS 7.0.4 (11B554a), model 4S, 32 GB, iOS 7.1 and model 5s, 16 GB, iOS 7.1
- pfSense: version 2.1 – pfSense is seriously good open-source router-appliance software that we can highly recommend based upon years worth of real-world usage experience
-
OpenVPN client: OpenVPN Connect – iOS 1.0.4 build 140
[requires iOS 6.1 or newer] - OpenVPN server: OpenVPN v2.3.2 i386 freeBSD 8.3 via pfSense 2.1-RELEASE (i386)
-
IPSec client: iPhone's built-in (Cisco) IPSec client
(e.g., on iPhone, see Settings → VPN → Add VPN Configuration...) - IPSec server: racoon (from ipsec-tools 0.8.1) as part of pfSense 2.1-RELEASE (i386)
-
Apple Configurator v1.5: to create an initial configuration profile (which is then manually edited) and to import/install the (manually edited) configuration profile
[requires OS X 10.8 or newer] -
iPhone Configuration Utility v3.5: as a tool for viewing the iPhone's console log (can also use Xcode, but this is a "lighter weight" tool)
[requires OS X 10.6 or newer]
(Apple has removed this link) - The free text editor TextWrangler: for manually editing the configuration profile files
-
pfSense's certificate manager: to create self-signed certificates
(see System → Cert Manager) - certificate-transformation utility: openssl 0.9.8y as part of Mac OS X 10.8.5 (and openssl as part of pfSense) – for various certificate transformations
Documentation Resources
- pfSense WiKi
- OpenVPN v2.3 man pages
- OpenVPN "HowTo" WiKi
- Apple's iOS Deployment Technical Reference for iOS 7.1
- Apple's online Configuration Profile Key Reference or as a PDF Configuration Profile Key Reference
- Apple's documentation for the Apple Configurator v1.5
- PDF on using the Apple Configurator (couldn't find it on Apple's site)
- Apple's documentation for Over-the-Air Profile Delivery (of interest for enterprise-level deployments)
- Apple KB article about VPN On Demand in iOS 7
- Apple KB article about VPN protocols and certificate types in iOS
Return to the VPN article's overview page.