Establishing a VPN connection to a Windows Server using PPTP

PPTP install howto

This is a quick howto for establishing a VPN connection to a Windows Server using PPTP in a Fedora 7 server, although it can easily be adapted to work with other distros, too.

Note that the Windows host is the VPN server and Linux will act as a client.

The PPTPClient site has great docs detailing the required steps for configuring it in many distributions, but the howto's there rely on a GUI tool for finishing the configuration, which is usually not an option in a VPS. The steps below would probably work for these cases.

http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net

apt-get instal ppp
wget http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pptpclient/pptp-1.7.1-3.i386.rpm
echo 'lock noauth nobsdcomp nodeflate' >> /etc/ppp/options.pptp

Edit /etc/ppp/chap-secrets and add the required credentials:

WORKSTATION\\myuser PPTP "password"  *

Create a file in /etc/ppp/peers/vpn with the following content, replacing <serveraddress> and WORKSTATION
myuser with the correct server address and username, respectively:

pty "pptp <serveraddress> --nolaunchpppd"
name WORKSTATION\\myuser
remotename PPTP
#require-mppe-128
file /etc/ppp/options.pptp
ipparam TUNNEL

Remember to match the "name" parameter here with the credentials in chap-secrets

You can now open the VPN connection in debug mode to see if it works:

pppd call vpn debug dump logfd 2 nodetach

Finally, to establish the vpn and let pppd daemonize, use:

pppd call vpn

It should create a ppp0 interface and now you can ping the other side of the VPN to see if it works.

Good luck!