How to Setup PPTP Client on CENTOS 7

VPN

The Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is a method for implementing virtual private networks. Since it is marked as non secure and vulnerable, I don’t recommend it as a “final” VPN solution. The main reason for its popularity is probably the native MS Windows support (since win 95). Also, it can be easily implemented with Mikrotik RouterOS (like I said, use it for internal VPNs only).

To set up your CentOS 7 as a PPTP clients you will need the pptp package.

 [root@linggeh /]#yum install -y pptp

Open /etc/ppp/chap-secrets and add the next line (at the end). Also, replace the UserName and password with the correct details:

 [root@linggeh /]# nano /etc/ppp/chap-secrets

userName     PPTP     password     *

linggeh         PPTP     123123      *

Create profile file

 [root@linggeh /]# nano /etc/ppp/peers/myVPN

and paste the next content (replace IP_OR_HOSTNAME with PPTP server IP or Hostname)

pty "pptp IP_OR_HOSTNAME --nolaunchpppd"

name userName

remotename PPTP

require-mppe-128

file /etc/ppp/options.pptp

ipparam myVPN

Save the file and test the connection with

 

[root@linggeh /]#pppd call myVPN

ifconfig should return something like

....

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol  

          inet addr:10.16.18.252  P-t-P:10.16.18.251  Mask:255.255.255.255

          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1436  Metric:1

          RX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:15 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3 

          RX bytes:2192 (2.1 KiB)  TX bytes:631 (631.0 b)

...

If you check your routes, you’ll probably notice that ppp0 connection is not used by any route(s). This is default behavior and you can easily switch/add default route with:

route add default dev ppp0

In my case, I don’t want to route the complete traffic (this VPN is just for management) so I’ll add only one static route

route add -net 192.168.0.0/16 dev ppp0

To start this connection on boot, add “pppd call myVPN” in rc.local.

Thank for Reading *-*