This is OpenVPN setup for gaming where VPN’s own internal network is not connected to physical LAN. It’s star shaped and OpenVPN server is running on high bandwidth connection on virtual machine or dedicated server in some ISP’s server room so that the latency is minimal to all connected gamers (ie. guy which has most upload bandwidth should do this). Every player and game server hoster connects to this server and OpenVPN handles rest of networking stuff. It’s also layer 2 (TAP) so that everyone sees mac addresses and UDP broadcasts work ok etc.

Install OpenVPN

aptitude install openvpn

Setting up OpenVPN server

/etc/openvpn/server.conf:

mode server
tls-server
port 1194
proto udp
dev tap
client-to-client
ca /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/ca.crt
cert /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/servername.crt
key /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/servername.key
dh /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/keys/dh384.pem
ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt
server-bridge 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.0 10.10.10.128 10.10.10.250
push .route 10.10.10.1 255.255.255.0
keepalive 5 60
comp-lzo
persist-key
persist-tun
status /var/log/openvpn-status.log
log-append /var/log/openvpn.log
verb 3
user nobody
group nogroup
#this allows more than one connection at a time from same key
#good if you just want to give one "gaming" certificate to everybody
#duplicate-cn

mkdir /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
cp /usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/easy-rsa/2.0/* /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa

Modify “vars” file with your favorite editor

Change export KEY_SIZE=1024 to export KEY_SIZE=384. We don’t need much encryption for gaming.

Modify export KEY_COUNTRY, KEY_PROVINCE, KEY_CITY, KEY_ORG and KEY_EMAIL to your liking.

Save the file.

source ./vars
./clean-all
./build-ca
./build-key-server servername
./build-dh

Use

/etc/init.d/openvpn restart
/etc/init.d/openvpn start
/etc/init.d/openvpn stop

To start/stop/restart the OpenVPN server.

Adding clients

Replace clientX with actual username wanted.

cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
source ./vars
./build-key-pkcs12 clientX

copy clientX.p12 file from “keys” directory to some directory

create following clientX.ovpn file:

client
dev tap
proto udp
#replace this with your OpenVPN server hostname/IP
remote 192.168.0.123 1194
resolv-retry infinite
nobind
ns-cert-type server
comp-lzo
verb 3
pull
# Replace this with your own .p12 certificate file
pkcs12 clientX.p12

Send the certificate (.p12) and .ovpn file to your buddy.

Windows client configurations / troubleshooting

We used OpenVPN GUI as Windows client. Download the .ovpn and .p12 file to C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config directory. Click connect on OpenVPN GUI’s taskbar icon and you should be connected.

To minimize problems set the OpenVPN TAP Adapter as first interface from network configuration. This required reboot for me so that Windows XP acknowledged it. Remove unnecessary stuff from TAP interface (like QoS).

WireShark is your friend. Use it to find out if games are shouting their packets to wrong network and not to VPN IP network. 99.9% of LAN games use UDP broadcast to tell about themselves so use “udp” as filter.

Ping and arp -a is also good for basic connectivity testing. Some firewalls block ping (ICMP) so be aware of that too. Other good tool is netstat and TCPView for looking in which port the game is running.

If you’re running some old games through virtual machine then set the virtual machine’s network adapter to OpenVPN’s TAP Adapter. IPX packets should go through too because TAP is layer 2 (but I didn’t test).

I also found this ForceBindIP application which will force specified application to certain network card or network card IP. Might come in handy if game is constantly picking up wrong NIC or IP network.

Sources

• OpenVPN bridging page
• Setting up OpenVPN in debian/ubuntu
• How to Install Openvpn
• Setting Up A Gaming LAN with OpenVPN

So what would you need to run BBS today? No, I don’t mean those crappy forums  that float in every corner of internet.

Generating ISO image for VMWare

I aqcuired old DOS boot floppy image from the internets. It was in IMG format so my VMWare wouldn’t like it. What to do? Who has floppy drives or disks any more? You guessed it: Use virtual floppy drive of course!

Ok, let’s create that ISO 9660 image. Open up CDBurnerXP and go to Disc -> Boot options and load up the IMG file. Now Burning software will scrape it for necessary boot stuff. Browse to that virtual floppy drive and throw all files to disc. Next thing is to “burn” it as ISO image. Easy.

Installing operating system

I’m using VMWare Server for this. Create new virtual machine and select Windows 98. I used 64 MB of memory, 1 GB of disk space and no networking. Use the generarated ISO image as virtual CD/DVD drive. Don’t add virtual COM ports just yet, let’s test this thing first.

Aargh! MS-DOS is horrible! Where’s scrollable screen or auto completion for commands? But show must go on. Run FDISK to create partition C:. After you’ve created the partition, reboot (CTRL-ALT-Insert). Go to BIOS (F2) and set CD-ROM drive as first bootable device. Next thing is to format C:. Run FORMAT C: /Q. Next thing is to copy OS to C:. Run COPY *.* C:. Go to C: drive and write the Master Boot Record with command FDISK /MBR. Go back to A: drive and run SYS C: which restores system. Next go to virtual RAM drive and copy some necessary software like EDIT with COPY *.* C:. It was in my case drive D:. Reboot. Change first bootable device to hard drive from BIOS. Now you’re running DOS from C:. Easy isn’t it?

Install PCBoard

First, you need to download PCBoard. Unzip the file. Open up the generated ISO image and add all unpacked files to some subdirectory (I used PCBOR11). Also, if you don’t have XCOPY.EXE anywhere in your ISO image, get it. Save the ISO file again. Reboot from CD.

Go to CD drive. In my case it was E:. Run XCOPY /S pcbor11 c:. Go to C: drive. go to install directory and run install.

*insert hours after hours of frustration here*

Installing Windows 98

This should be pretty basic stuff.

Installing virtual modem

Install virtual modem to your actual OS. I found and used Virtual Modem Pro. I created Virtual COM1 port with it and then used the “Use physical serial port” from VMWare configuration for my guest OS.

Installing BBBS

Fetch BBBS from it’s site.

Configure BBBS by running bcfg4

Start node 1 by running BBBS 1

BBBS should be now in “Waiting for calls” state. Or if not, install “Standard 56k modem” to W98 and try again.

But that’s not enough

You can’t run that virtual modem over VoIP. VoIP is designed for human voice. Modem’s noise is garbled and connection cannot be made. There’s hope though, ITU V.150.1 AKA V.MoIP (Modem over IP) is coming. Some hardware boxes seems to support it already. So let’s try someday again when MoIP support is available.

Setup in the end

Windows XP is running virtual modem and VMWare. VMWare is running Windows 98 and it’s running BBBS which is connected to virtual COM1 port via VMWare’s “physical” COM1 which is connected to that virtual modem.