Guide – How To Start – SoftEther VPN Server on Windows Server 2022 Base on Amazon

Configuring and connecting to SoftEther VPN Server on Windows Server 2022 Base

For the VM to work, you need to open TCP 443, 992, 5555 and  UDP 1194, 500, 4500 ports in the Security group in AWS Firefall.

Connecting to the VM

1. To connect to the virtual machine, run the “Remote Desktop Connection” shortcut “Win + R”

In the window that appears, enter “mstsc” and click “OK”.

2. In the window that appears, enter the IP of the virtual machine and click “Connect”.

3. In the window that appears, enter your username and password and click “OK”.
   
4. Check the box and click “Yes”.

Running the server

1. To start the VPN Server admin panel, you should open the app “SoftEther VPN Server Manager” on the desktop. 

2. Connect to the server

3. Enter and confirm the new administrator password

4. To change your settings, add new users or edit existing users click on the “Manage Virtual Hub” button:

5. Then click on the “Manage Users” button:

6. Create a new user, click  “New”:

7. It’s necessary to insert the name of the user into the “User Name” field, type the password into the “Password” field and verify it by re-entering the password into the “Confirm Password” field.

After the data were entered, click “OK”.

8. Click ‘Manage Virtual Hub’ – ‘Virtual NAT and Virtual DHCP Server (SecureNAT)’

9. Click ‘Enable SecureNAT’

Then click ‘OK’ and go back to the VPN manager

10. Click ‘Refresh’

The instruction for the customization of the VPN Client

To customize the VPN Client, first you need to know the server IP address. You can find it in the personal account of Amazon. (You need to select the virtual machine from the list. By clicking the item “Overview”, your IP is displayed in the line of “Public IP Address”).

After that, you need the OpenVPN Client for the work. Go to site: Community Downloads | OpenVPN and download the installer in the “.exe” format, depending on your OS Windows:

After the downloading of the installer is finished, you should run it.

In the opened window of the OpenVPN  installer click on the “Next” button:

After that click “I Agree”:

Click “Next”:

Then click “Install”:

After the installation progress is finished, click “Next”:

And then click “Finish”.

When you try to start OpenVPN after the installation, the pop-up message of the absence of the configuration files appears:

In order for OpenVPN to work, you need to add these configuration files for the app by hand. You can create them in the “SoftEther VPN Server Manager” app. For this you need:

1. Run the “SoftEther VPN Server Manager”.
2. Click “Connect” in the opened window of the app.
3. Click on the “OpenVPN / MS-SSTP Settings” button.

Click on the “Generate a Sample Configuration File for OpenVPN Clients” button.

When the window of the Windows Explorer is opened, select the path to save the archive:

There are the next files in the saved archive:

You should transmit the file named “…_openvpn_remote_access_l3” by the path of installation of the “OpenVPN”, in this case (since the standard path was selected) this is “C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config”.

Now the OpenVPN is ready for work and you can run it. After it was started, the app is displayed in the system tray in the form of the monitor icon with the lock.

To connect to VPN you should click the icon with the monitor with the lock twice.

The next windows will be opened:

In the fields “Username” and “Password” it’s necessary to enter the name and the password which were added to the “SoftEther VPN Server Manager” and after that click “OK” to connect to the VPN server.

Now your external IP address has changed and you are using the Internet through the VPN server of the virtual machine.

You can check the change in your IP on What Is My IP by going to it before connecting to SoftEther VPN Server Manager and after connecting.