VPN cRIO

[fabio.intel]

Dear all,

I'd like to connect to a cRIO via VPN... it is possible?

I tryed with HAMACHI but I failed.

For my test the net was:

one PC in my office, one PC and the cRIO on the customer's office.

Best regards

[Matthew_Williams]

Hi fabio.intel.  We use cRIO ( and FieldPoint) over VPNs all the time; no issues.  What were the problems you saw?  Did other things work properly over the VPN?

Our setups are generally over VPN routers, rather than PC to PC, but that shouldn't matter if the VPN itself is properly configured between the PCs.  Was the

default route (gateway) on the cRIO pointed to the client's PC?  Does Hamachi open up ports on the client's PC's firewall?

Matt

[Marco_Ge]

Hi Mattew, may I ask you which VPN tool are you using with ni linux cRIO, if any? 

How did you configure your VPN in order to communicate between a cRIO and a Windows PC through a VPN?

Thanks 

MArco

[rolfk]

VPN Routers are typically separate devices that you connect between your local network and the internet and handle the routing of part or the entire traffic through a VPN connection.

As to setting up VPN directly on your cRIO that is also possible (at least if you use a modern cRIO that runs NI Linux as OS) but likely wrought with many issues. Setting up VPN isn't exactly trivial and requires a pretty good understanding of the network configuration. With ready made packages that you can install under Windows or as an external hardware device, things are mostly taken care of for you but with Linux you simply follow the standard Linux procedures about setting up VPN on a system and cross your fingers. It's absolutely possible, but you should not have any aversion about using the command line, editing configuration scripts and doing quite a bit of trial and error for yourself, even with step by step explanation for your specific VPN provider.

[Marco_Ge]

Thanks for tour reply rolfk.

Yes i have a Linux crio and i've already installeD additional packages under the Shell in the past.

Which tool do you suggest? I know that openvpn Is One but i've not found any step by step guide for a install procedure on crio.

I've already creatd the certificate files under Windows in the past.

Thanks again

[rolfk]

Well according to this thread, openvpn is a standard install on NI Linux at least since LabVIEW 2018.

It goes easiest if your VPN provider can give you a .ovpn config file that contains all the relevant settings for their server. 

Then you would likely have to follow something like this.

[Marco_Ge]

Could someone post a procedure on how to make openvpn working on a linux crio?

[Marco_Ge]

I've tried with the commands to install openvpn to crio through the console, but it fails.

There are little clues navigating inside the crio c drive confirming that some version of openvpn comes already installed, but the folders necessary for configurations seem to be missing.

There are also some interesting but complicated vpn settings explained in the past here:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-Linux-Real-Time-Discussions/VPN-connection-for-cRIO-9068/td-p/3441165/pa...

and here:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-Linux-Real-Time-Discussions/OpenVPN-not-working-out-of-the-box-on-9068-w...

but i am not so expert to understand each passage.

In some NI past presentations at niweek, linux crio was marked as openvpn compatible but the support cannot explain how to configure it.

[EcthelionV]

Hello I have an html file with the instructions of how I deployed in cRIOs 9066 and 9063 (NI Linux RT OS) I hope it can help you. The only issue is I wrote it in Spanish and I don't have the time right now to translate it to English so you would need to do it.

[Marco_Ge]

Many thanks Roger! This guide is very helpful for my purposes.

I followed the steps and now cRIO side is configured, as I can see OpenVPN running automatically under Linux.

Still I have some authentication issues between the two sides, I guess they are caused by the last two directives, on which I still effectively  have some doubt:

VPNClientCredentials.txt: should it contain the crio user/password created (e.g. admin/admin) at step 0 ( I guess these are used to start the OpenVPN service under LinuxRT)?

key.txt: is this the "strong  password" asked during certificates creation for client, when working on the server side? (that's the only password I had to specify during certificates creation process) What if I left it blank?

[Note: to execute putty directives, I had to put the full path to .conf file (openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/client.conf)]

On the server side I have created both certificates and .ovpn files (client, server) following this guide. Then the .ovpn file for client side has been modified for client side in order to contain the certificates , as in your example.

https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/Easy_Windows_Guide?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=d58401e298fc72b662...

Thanks again for your great help. 

Have a nice day