Here is what it would like on an Airport Base Station if you were to set up port forwarding of VPN traffic manually. The ports you need to have forwarded to your macOS Server are UDP 500, UDP 1701, and UDP 4500.

Here's how! Allow VPN traffic through your router to macOS Serverĭepending on who manufactured your router, you'll have to consult the documentation from the manufacturer to be able to allow VPN traffic to your internally networked macOS Server running the VPN service. If you don't have an Apple Airport Base Station, you'll have to manually set up your router to allow for VPN traffic to travel through your router to your macOS Server. If you're on an Apple-centric network with an Airport Base Station, you'll be prompted to automatically setup your Airport Base Station to allow for connections to your macOS Server VPN service.

Select VPN under the Services listings.

Enter the users you wish to have VPN access.

Select Allow Connections From only some users.

Click the Add button (looks like +) and select VPN.

Select your macOS Server computer name.

Optionally click Save Profile if you wish to create a configuration file so that clients can simply load your server's connection information for easier client setup.

Optionally click Routes if you need special networking routes you need to configure.

Optionally click DNS Settings if you want to change the default DNS server your VPN clients will use when connected to your VPN server.

Optionally click Client Addresses if you want to change the number of VPN clients that can simultaneously connect to your VPN server.

The more complicated and random, the better.

Under VPN Host Name, enter either your static IP address or dynamic hostname depending on the method you used when finding out your IP address above.Ĭlick Edit Permissions and select the users you want to be able to connect to your VPN.

Launch the Server app from your applications.

Once you have your static IP address or have a hostname for your dynamic IP address, you can go on and configure your VPN service in macOS Server. These are typically used for business accounts but, depending on your ISP, can be available for an additional fee. Many ISPs also offer static IP addresses. That way, you'll get an alias known as a 'hostname' that won't change, even if your IP address does. If you use a dynamic IP address to set up your VPN service, there is no guarantee that you'll have that IP address will still be yours in the future, and the remote connection will fail.Īs a workaround, there are several dynamic domain name services you can purchase.

What is the vpn on a mac