Overview

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a technology that allows users to establish a secure connection over the internet. It creates a private network from a public internet connection by encrypting the data transferred between the user's device and a remote server. This encryption ensures that any data sent or received is protected from interception or tampering by unauthorized third parties.

A VPN tunnel is a secure connection between your device (computer, smartphone, etc.) and a remote network or server. Installation of the VPN tunnel may be required when supporting a specific client such as Transformational Healthcare Services (THS) to access the THS system.

This article provides a step-by-step guide to creating a VPN tunnel. 

Audience

• SCC agents
• SCC/VICIdial Administrators

Procedure

1. Download and install a VPN tunnel. Use WireGuard (download the client here: https://www.wireguard.com/install/).
2. Once downloaded, open WireGuard on your desktop.
3. Click the dropdown Add Tunnel and select Add empty tunnel.... This will open the Create new tunnel window. 
   
   
   
   
4. In the Name field, enter tollanis-vpn then click Save. 
   
   
   
   
5. In the Tunnels tab, select tollanis-vpn and click Edit. 
   
   
   
   
6. The Edit tunnel window will open. Use the configuration below: 

   Address = 10.0.0.3/24
   
   [Peer]
   PublicKey = jRxju2DWU8BoXsOTX6QSSA4lLT8EhsRnSbgzA5xxHDM=
   AllowedIPs = 0.0.0.0/0
   Endpoint = 44.199.190.196:51820
   PersistentKeepalive = 5

    

   It should look like the image below:
   
   
   
   

   Important! One thing to note here is the Address parameter. The Address needs to be unique, so if adding an additional agent as a client to the VPN, the address should always be increased by 1, i.e., if the address value for agent A is 10.0.0.3/24, agent B's address will be 10.0.0.4/24, the next agent will be 10.0.0.5/24 and so on.  The address assigned to the agent will be provided by the SCC/VICIdial Administrator.

7. Uncheck the box Block untunneled traffic (kill-switch). This is to allow the tunnelling of the agents’ network traffic through the VPN connection so that they can obtain the public IP address of the VPN server. 
   
   
   
   

8. Click Save.
   

   WireGuard uniquely identifies clients using keys. A Public Key will be generated for each client.

9. Navigate to the Tunnels tab and click tollanis-vpn to display the configuration information. Copy the Public Key and send it to the SCC/VICIdial Administrator.
   
   
   
   
10. Wait for the confirmation on the successful addition of the tunnel to the server. Once received, go back to the configuration page for tollanis-vpn and click Activate. 
    
    
    
    The Status will change to Active. 
    
    

Verification

To verify that the VPN tunnel is active:

Check your IP address (you can use whatismyipaddress.com). It should match the Endpoint value found in the tollanis-vpn information screen.