This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install Pritunl VPN server on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04.
Pritunl VPN server is a free, open source enterprise VPN server that anyone can use to setup a secure VPN tunnels across networks.
Pritunl comes with a simple, yet powerful web interface that works with other open source VPN servers like OpenVPN, IPsec, WireGuard and others across distributed cloud services.
Pritunl VPN server allows complex site-to-site links, gateway links and provide local network access to remote users.
To get started with installing Pritunl on Ubuntu, follow the steps below:
Prepare Ubuntu
Before installing Pritunl VPN server, make sure that these packages are installed to allow seamless installation.
sudo apt update sudo apt install curl gnupg2 wget unzip
Install Pritunl VPN Server
After installing the packages above, follow the steps below to install Pritunl. First, add its repository key and file to Ubuntu since Pritunl packages are not available in Ubuntu by default.
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv E162F504A20CDF15827F718D4B7C549A058F8B6B sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 7568D9BB55FF9E5287D586017AE645C0CF8E292A
Next, run the commands below to add its repository file.
echo "deb focal main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pritunl.list
After that, run the commands below to install Pritunl.
sudo apt update sudo apt install pritunl
After installing, these commands can be used to start, stop and enable Pritunl VPN server to automatically start up when the server boots.
sudo systemctl stop pritunl sudo systemctl start pritunl sudo systemctl enable pritunl
To verify if the server is installed and ready, run the commands below:
sudo systemctl status pritunl
That should display similar lines as shown below:
pritunl.service - Pritunl Daemon
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/pritunl.service; enabled; vendor prese>
Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-03-03 21:39:45 CST; 13s ago
Main PID: 4149 (pritunl)
Tasks: 19 (limit: 4654)
Memory: 159.2M
CGroup: /system.slice/pritunl.service
├─4149 /usr/lib/pritunl/bin/python /usr/lib/pritunl/bin/pritunl st>
└─4173 pritunl-web
Install MongoDB
Pritunl relies on MongoDB database server. Because MongoDB packages are not available in Ubuntu, you’ll have to add its repository as well.
Run the commands below to add its repository key and file.
curl -fsSL | sudo apt-key add -
Next, add its repository file.
echo "deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 ] focal/mongodb-org/4.4 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-4.4.list
Finally, run the commands below to install.
sudo apt update sudo apt-get install mongodb-server
Access Pritunl Portal
At this point Pritunl is installed and ready. Go to the server’s hostname or IP address.
Before you can login you’ll need to generate a setup key. Run the commands below to do that.
sudo pritunl setup-key
That should display lines similar to the one below with a setup key.
from cryptography import x509 a699d8b59a584b958f04bc2f4da5c48f
Copy the key and enter it in to the setup wizard, then click Save.
Next, run the commands below to generate a password to use to sign in.
sudo pritunl default-password
You should see similar lines as below. Use the credentials to sign in.
Administrator default password: username: "pritunl" password: "jI2XnSWLLcU4"
Login and begin setting up your environment.
That should display Pritunl dashboard. From there you can setup your environment.
Go to the server tab and create a new VPN server. User tab allows you to create users that will connect to the VPN.
The steps to get a VPN up is to first create an organization, then create a user. Next create a VPN server and attach the server to an organization.
To improve performance, run the commands below to increase the open file limit on the server. This will prevent connections issues on servers with high load.
sudo sh -c 'echo "* hard nofile 64000" >> /etc/security/limits.conf' sudo sh -c 'echo "* soft nofile 64000" >> /etc/security/limits.conf' sudo sh -c 'echo "root hard nofile 64000" >> /etc/security/limits.conf' sudo sh -c 'echo "root soft nofile 64000" >> /etc/security/limits.conf'
Conclusion:
This post showed you how to install Pritunl VPN server on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04. If you find any error above, please use the form below to report.
