macOS VPN Client & Server
Access Server supports VPN connections from macOS devices using a VPN client app.
Access Server supports VPN connections from macOS devices using a VPN client app. Our official app, OpenVPN Connect, is available for macOS and makes it easy to do that.
Each macOS device needs a client application to connect with Access Server. We recommend using OpenVPN Connect.
Introduction
This topic is meant for Access Server users who wish to connect their macOS computers using the official OpenVPN Connect app.
OpenVPN Connect is our free VPN client app. You can download it from Access Server's Client Web UI with bundled connection profiles ready to connect to your VPN server. Here, you'll find an overview of connecting to Access Server from macOS and a tutorial you can follow.
Install OpenVPN Connect
The OpenVPN protocol isn't built into macOS. Therefore, you must install a client app to communicate with Access Server. A client app captures the traffic you want to send through the OpenVPN tunnel, encrypts it, passes it to the server, and decrypts the return traffic.
Ready to install OpenVPN Connect from your Client Web UI? Follow the steps here: Connect to Access Server on macOS with OpenVPN Connect.
Looking to install from our website? We recommend downloading OpenVPN Connect directly from your Access Server Client Web UI. You can also download the installation file for OpenVPN Connect v3 from the link below.
Alternative OpenVPN clients
The open-source project also has a client for macOS called Tunnelblick. Tunnelblick supports the option to connect to multiple OpenVPN servers simultaneously, which can cause connection issues if not configured correctly. You must not implement conflicting routes and subnets. Unlike on the Windows platform, however, you don’t need to add multiple virtual network adapters because they are provisioned automatically.
Tunnelblick also supports drag-and-drop for adding OpenVPN connection profiles, which can be .conf or .ovpn file extensions. For example, you can download a user-locked or auto-login profile from the Access Server Client Web UI and drag-and-drop it on the Tunnelblick icon. The system tray menu then shows you the options for using the connection profile. Tunnelblick doesn’t support client-side scripting, importing connection profiles directly from an Access Server, or connecting with a server-locked profile.
There are many VPN clients built for the OpenVPN protocol that will also work with Access Server. Refer to the community website for the current list.