# [Setting up a native Cisco IPsec VPN server at home using a Raspberry Pi 3](/content/posts/setting-up-a-native-cisco-ipsec-vpn-server-using-a-raspberry-pi/index.html)

Feb 07, 2017

Justin Keller

Setting up a VPN server is incredibly valuable in terms of security and convenience. Last year I was traveling as a digital nomad throughout Europe and South America jumping from public WiFi to coffee shop to hotel WiFi. Being able to securely connect to my apartment in San Francisco while I was 6,000 miles away was fantastic. Using a VPN allows me to whitelist my apartment's ip address in firewall rules and then securely and confidently connect to servers and services.

The main requirement was that I wanted native support from macOS and iOS. While [OpenVPN](https://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source.html) is very high quality and recommended, it does not natively work with macOS and iOS thus a non-starter for my use.

Luckily I found **[setup-ipsec-vpn](https://github.com/hwdsl2/setup-ipsec-vpn)** by [Lin Song @hwdsl2](https://github.com/hwdsl2). Lin did an amazing job creating a wrapper script that essentially installs and configures IPsec/L2TP and native Cisco IPsec. Cisco IPsec is the gold standard in traditional enterprise VPN and provides higher throughput with less overhead than L2TP.

Once I had the software ironed out, it was time to buy the hardware. The obvious choice was a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B which you can buy on [Amazon for $49.99](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C6FFNY4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1) including a power adapter and free shipping.

I actually spent an hour or so finding the best Micro SD card money can buy in terms of performance, and ended up buying a [Samsung 32GB EVO Plus](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WR4IJBE/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1). I also went fancy and got a beautiful cover for my Raspberry Pi from [Amazon for an additional $7.75](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CK3XTIE/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

After all the parts arrived from Amazon, I simply installed the latest version of [Raspbian Stretch Lite](https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/) on my Pi and ran a quick `sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade`. You can also use the full install of Raspbian with a desktop environment, but I opted for Lite _(command line only)_.

Setup and installation of the VPN server software is literally a one-liner and works buttery smooth:

```bash
wget https://git.io/vpnsetup -O vpnsetup.sh && sudo \
VPN_IPSEC_PSK='your_ipsec_pre_shared_key' \
VPN_USER='your_vpn_username' \
VPN_PASSWORD='your_vpn_password' sh vpnsetup.sh
```

Replace `your_ipsec_pre_shared_key`, `your_vpn_username`, `your_vpn_password`, with your desired credentials.

Next, you'll need to assign a static private address to your Pi via DHCP reservation and then enable two port forwarding rules. I have an Apple AirPort Time Capsule at my apartment, so this process looks like:

And the two corresponding port forwarding rules:

Lastly, just configure your Mac and iPhone to connect to your newly setup VPN server using Cisco IPsec.

Here are a few eye candy pictures of the completed Raspberry Pi VPN server at my apartment.