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Creating a virtual private network (VPN) between your desktop or laptop and a VPN service within the Rapid Access Cloud, allows you access to the private IP address of instances associated with your project (e.g. 10.0.0.73; 10.1.1.9; etc.). This is best if you need access to the resources you have created in the Rapid Access Cloud for computational experiments for example, but do not need to offer public services to the internet over IPv4, like web applications or email.

The VPN will need to be manually started each time you wish to access the private network and only computers that have connected to the VPN in this manner can access the private network, however multiple computers can access the network at the same time if they each have the VPN configured.


Mac OS X

  1. Install Tunnelblick, a free OpenVPN application for Mac OSX.

  2. Download the Rapid Access Cloud VPN configuration files. VPN access is configured per region:

    1. Calgary

    2. Edmonton

  3. Unzip the file locally and double-click the unzipped file vpn-yyc.tblk. This will automatically run Tunnelblick and add the VPN configuration.

  4. In the top right corner of your screen, you will see the Tunnelblick icon. Click on it and choose "Connect vpn-yyc".

  5. When prompted, enter your RAC username and password. To check whether the VPN is working, open a terminal and attempt to ping a private IP address associated with an instance. For example, “ping 10.0.0.73”.

Ignore the following error. You should still be able to ping and ssh to the private IP address.

This computer's apparent public IP address was not different after connecting to vpn. This may mean that your VPN is not configured correctly.

Windows

  1. Download and Install the community version of OpenVPN from openvpn.net.

  2. Download the Rapid Access Cloud VPN configuration files. VPN access is configured per region:

    1. Calgary

    2. Edmonton

  3. Unzip then copy the contents to c:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config.

  4. On the Windows Desktop, right-click on the OpenVPN GUI shortcut, select Properties and then the Compatibility tab. Check the box to "Run this program as an administrator".

  5. Double-click on the OpenVPN GUI shortcut and an OpenVPN icon should now appear on your taskbar.

  6. Right-click on the OpenVPN taskbar icon and choose "connect".

  7. When prompted, enter your Rapid Access Cloud username and password. To check whether the VPN is working, open a terminal and attempt to ping your private IP address. For example, “ping 10.0.0.73”.

Ubuntu Linux

  1. Install and configure the openvpn package for your distribution. For example, on Ubuntu 16.04, run the following commands:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openvpn unzip

  2. Download the Rapid Access Cloud VPN configuration files. VPN access is configured per region:

    1. Calgary

    2. Edmonton

  3. Unzip the file and move the contents to /etc/openvpn/.

  4. Start the OpenVPN client service: 

    sudo systemctl start openvpn@client
Enter Auth Username:
Enter Auth Password:

    Enter your Rapid Access Cloud username/email address and password to authenticate.

  5. To check whether the VPN is working, open a terminal and attempt to ping your private IP address. For example, “ping 10.0.0.73”. 

    Make sure that the security group for the instance has rules to allow ingress ICMP.

  6. To disconnect from the VPN: 

    sudo systemctl stop openvpn@client
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