GCP provides a link to your instance from the Google Cloud Platform Console. Click on your Compute Engine, then on the name of your OpenVPN Access Server VM, and you’ll find the SSH button under Remote access. The connection will launch in a new browser window.

When you very first login to the Admin Web UI with the temporary password provided after launching, you can change the password under User Management > User Permissions. Click on the icon for More Settings for the admin user ‘openvpn’ and enter the password in the field. Click and Update Running Server.

To set the password using SSH, with root access to your instance, use the command:

passwd openvpn

The URL displays with the admin and temporary password after you’ve finished launching the instance. If you need to find it again, from your VM instance details page within your Google Cloud Console, you need the external (or ephemeral) IP address listed under the Network interfaces section. You can then use that to navigate to the UI in your web browser by entering https://[ephemeral-IP]:943/admin. Using the IP address will still work even after you’ve set it up with a specific hostname.

You can reserve a static external IP address through two options, both outlined on Google’s site, Reserving a static external IP address. Those options are by reserving that IP address then assigning it to your OpenVPN Access Server VM instance or promoting an existing, ephemeral external IP address to become a static external IP address.

We recommend that you choose at least small (1 shared vCPU) as the size of your instance.

The default timezone of a GCP instance is set to UTC. If you would like to change this setting, run the following commands in SSH:

apt update
apt install tzdata

During the installation of tzdata, it will ask you for the region and timezone you would like, then set those values for you.

For more information about OpenVPN Access Server, refer to the user manual.

Providing a customized hostname for users to connect to the Client UI provides a better experience than remembering an IP address. It’s easier to update a DNS A Record than requiring users to reinstall client profiles if the IP address changes for any reason. Lastly, SSL certificates require a proper FQDN hostname in order to function properly, which makes this step required to set that up.

• Get your static IP address
• Create a new DNS A Record (with your website host or you could use Google’s DNS Cloud service)
• Link the IP address to your chosen subdomain (e.g.: vpn.companyname.com)
• Log in to your Access Server Admin Web UI
• Navigate to Configuration > Network Settings
• Enter your subdomain in the Hostname or IP Address field
• Click on Save and Update Running Server

You will have to wait for the DNS servers for propagation, which may take up to a day or two. Once updated, your users can go directly to your subdomain to download clients and configuration files