Setting up OpenVPN

1. Open your browser and login to the OpenVPN Access Server you wish to connect to (example: https://nyc-1-us.ironsocket.com). Check our Network Details page for the list of VPN server locations.
2. Enter your VPN username and password. Change the drop-down menu from 'Connect' to 'Login' and click the 'Go' button. You can get your VPN Login Details from the member's area.

3. Click 'Yourself (user-locked profile)' and download your 'client.ovpn' file to your computer.

4. Go to http://whatismyipaddress.com/hostname-ip to get the corresponding IP address of the VPN server you want to connect to. Take note of the IP Address.

5. Login to your router
6. Go to VPN Tunneling > OpenVPN Client > Basic
7. In the basic settings do the following:
• Start with WAN: Check
• Interface Type: TUN
• Protocol: TCP
• Server IP address/Port: (Enter the IP Address from Step 4)
• Port: 443
• Firewall: Automatic
• Authorization mode: TLS
• Advanced Options: Enable
• Username/Password Authentication: Check
• Username: (Enter your VPN username)
• Password: (Enter your VPN password)
• Extra HMAC Authorization: Outgoing
• Create NAT on tunnel: Check
8. Click 'Save'

9. Click 'Advanced' tab
10. Use the following settings:
• Poll interval: 0
• Redirect traffic: Check
• Accept DNS configuration: Strict
• Encryption cipher: BF-CBC
• Compression: Disabled
• TSL Regeneration Time: -1
• Connection retry: 30 (or you may set -1 for infinite)
In 'Custom Configuration' please enter the following:
• ns-cert-type server

11. Click 'Keys'
12. Open the client.ovpn file you downloaded in Step 3 and copy the content into the appropriate fields. You can open the .ovpn file with a text editor like Notepad or Wordpad.
13. In 'Static Key', copy/paste all of the contents from 'tls-auth' into this field including the BEGIN and END markers.
14. In 'Certificate Authority', copy/paste all of the contents from 'ca' into this field including the BEGIN and END markers.
15. In 'Client Certificate', copy/paste all of the contents from 'cert' into this field including the BEGIN and END markers.
16. In 'Client Key', copy/paste all of the contents from 'key' into this field including the BEGIN and END markers.

17. Click 'Save'
18. Click 'Status' tab, and then click on 'Start Now' button to start OpenVPN connection.
19. Once you are connected, the status will change and you will see general statistics table.

20. Once connected, go to https://ironsocket.com to check your new IP address and location.

Troubleshooting

I am getting the message 'Authentication Failed' when trying to connect
Be sure to check that your account is still active. If it is, note that your VPN Username and Password is different than your IronSocket Website credentials. You can locate your VPN Username and Password on your VPN Login Details page.

After connecting I am unable to browse and I get disconnected after 1-2 minutes
Some routers and ISPs use abnormal UDP Network Address Translation (NAT) configurations which can result in your outgoing data jumping between different outgoing ports. This sort of connection is not supported by OpenVPN. Try switching to TCP to see if this resolves your connectivity issues. See how to do this below.

How do I switch between TCP and UDP protocols?
All of our .ovpn configuration files include both UDP and TCP connection information. By default UDP typically is used first as it appears first in the list of connection settings.

If you are using the OpenVPN Connect application you can simply adjust the settings to force the connection to use UDP or TCP. On Windows and Mac OSX this is an option in the Right-click / Control-click menu on the taskbar / menu bar icon. On iOS, in the general "Settings" area OpenVPN Connect can be selected and configured. On Android, the Preferences option can be selected by pressing the menu button within the OpenVPN Connect app.

If you are using OpenVPN Community or Tunnelblick you can edit the .ovpn file directly with a text editor and comment out the remote UDP or TCP lines. These lines appear at the bottom of the file and start with the word 'remote' and end with 'udp' or 'tcp'. To comment out a line just add a semi-colon ';' at the start of the line. For example change "remote uk-lon-1.isvpn.net 53 udp" to ";remote uk-lon-1.usvpn.net 53 udp". Save the file and re-import it into your application.