GCP Frequently Asked Questions

Getting started

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We provide detailed instructions in our GCP Quick Start Guide.

To access the Admin Web UI for your OpenVPN Access Server, point your web browser to the ephemeral IP address assigned to your instance and sign in with the admin user. You can find your ephemeral IP address as the External IP address listed under the Network interfaces details for your VM Instance on your Google compute engine.

You can download OpenVPN Connect clients that include profiles directly from the public IP address of your Access Server. You can also download clients directly from our site and import profiles from your server.

If you don’t find your questions here, you can also click on our general Frequently Asked Questions page for questions regarding licensing, renewals, purchases, and administration.

Connectivity

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 launches in a new browser window.

The first time you sign into the Admin Web UI with the temporary password provided after launching. We recommend you change the password under User Management > User Permissions. Click on the icon for More Settings for the admin user ‘openvpn’ and enter a new password in the field. Click Save and Update Running Server.

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 still works even after you’ve set it up with a specific hostname.

GCP Configuration

Refer to Google’s site for Reserving a static external IP address. They provide details about two options for setting a static IP address: 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 asks you for the region and time zone you would like, then set those values for you.

OpenVPN Access Server Configuration

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

Using a customized hostname for the web interfaces provides your users and admins with a better experience. Rather than entering an IP address, you can enter a hostname such as https://vpn.example.com. Refer to setting up your OpenVPN Access Server hostname for steps.

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