Setting up PPTP VPN server on a CentOS OpenVZ VPS
Written by BiRU Sunday, 07 June 2015 22:45
In this tutorial I use PPTP as its supported by almost all devices natively: Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and Mac OS.
1. Install PPTPD
If your OS is CentOS/RedHat 5:
yum install ppp
cd /usr/local/src
wget http://poptop.sourceforge.net/yum/stable/packages/pptpd-1.4.0-1.rhel5.x86_64.rpm
rpm -iv pptpd-1.4.0-1.rhel5.x86_64.rpm
If your OS is CentOS/RedHat 6:
yum install ppp
cd /usr/local/src
wget http://poptop.sourceforge.net/yum/stable/packages/pptpd-1.4.0-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
rpm -iv pptpd-1.4.0-1.el6.x86_64.rpm
For 32bit editions replace with correct packages URLs.
2. Edit IP setttings in /etc/pptpd.conf
nano /etc/pptpd.conf
localip 10.0.0.254
remoteip 10.0.0.101-200
3. Add user accounts in/etc/ppp/chap-secrets (assign username and password)
nano /etc/ppp/chap-secrets
username1 * password1 *
username2 * password2 *
4. DNS settings in /etc/ppp/options.pptpd
nano /etc/ppp/options.pptpd
#ms-dns
#uncomment and set to your VPS IP if your local DNS server is configured to allow forwarding from ppp interface
ms-dns 8.8.8.8
ms-dns 8.8.4.4
5. Enable network forwarding in /etc/sysctl.conf
nano /etc/sysctl.conf
net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
Use the following command to apply the change:
sysctl -p
6. Configure firewall and forwarding
iptables -A INPUT -i venet0 -p tcp --dport 1723 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -i venet0 -p gre -j ACCEPT
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -j SNAT --to-source [VPS's IP]
iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp0 -o venet0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i venet0 -o ppp0 -j ACCEPT
service iptables save
service iptables restart
Fill in the correct VPN IP address in the commands above.
If you’re using a Linux firewall/router in front of the VPS hosting the VPN server, make sure you forward GRE protocol traffic to it:
VPS=
PIP=
iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -d $PIP -p 47 -j DNAT --to $VPS
iptables -I FORWARD -d $VPS -p 47 -j ACCEPT
If using a DD-WRT router with a dynamic public IP, the first rule can be replaced with
iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -d `nvram get wan_ipaddr` -p 47 -j DNAT --to $VPS
7. Start PPTP VPN server
Use the following command:
service pptpd restart
To set PPTP Daemon to automatically start on boot, run:
chkconfig pptpd on
