HowTo: Mac OS X OpenVPN Setup Tutorial

In order to connect using OpenVPN from a Mac you need to install Tunnelblick. Tunnelblick is a ready-to-use graphical OpenVPN client for Mac OS X. It comes as an application package with all binaries and drivers included, no manual installation necessary.

For Mac OS X 10.4 – 10.8 (“Tiger”, “Leopard”, “Snow Leopard”, and “Lion”, and “Mountain Lion”)

• Download Tunnelblick from http://tunnelblick.googlecode.com/files/Tunnelblick_3.2.6.dmg
• Mount it and drag the Tunnelblick.app icon to your Applications folder.
• Run Tunnelblick once by double clicking on it and quit. ~/Library/openvpn/ folder will be created in your home directory
• Go to Download section from your Client Area, and download the config file for your package. Extract the files and copy the extracted configuration files  to ~/Library/openvpn/
• Launch Tunnelblick then click on tunnelblick icon then select “VPN Details…”
• Select server you want to connect and click Connect button.
• Enter your VPN username and password and click OK.

The connection will be active as long as you do not end it or log out of your computer. Putting your computer to sleep or losing contact to the server (by lack of wlan signal, for example) will result in Tunnelblick’s attempt to re-establish the connection.

Use “Disconnect” from the drop-down menu to end the VPN connection; use “Quit” to leave the program and to prevent Tunnelblick from starting itself at your next login at your computer.

How do I uninstall Tunnelblick?

Simply move the Tunnelblick.app icon to the trash. There are no other files installed into the system. In case you are wondering: the tun/tap kernel extensions are contained within the .app package and will be loaded only when needed directly from there.