Create an IPSec Tunnel between two VDCs
Introduction
A VPN Gateway enables secure, encrypted communications between roaming users, on-premise networks, and cloud resources. This example demonstrates how users can configure the VPN Gateway product in IONOS Cloud to create an IPSec based site-to-site setup between two VDCs in different regions.
Overview
This tutorial demonstrates the use of the following:
Components
Description
Two VDCs
Provisioned in locations de/txl and gb/lhr respectively.
Managed gateways
We will use a managed IPSec instance to provide secure, encrypted connectivity between two VDCs in IONOS Cloud.
Before you begin
The following information is necessary to set up an IPSec connection between two VDCs:
VDC Left(de/txl)
VDC Right(gb/lhr)
Gateway Public Address
203.0.113.10
203.0.113.20
LAN ID
1
2
LAN Subnet
192.10.1.0/24
192.10.2.0/24
Gateway Lan Address
192.10.1.5
192.10.2.5
Pre-Shared Key
Remember to use the appropriate key.
Example: vPabcdefg123435hij565k7lmno8pq=
Reserve your IPs
Before proceeding, ensure you have an IP block with at least one free IP address to assign to each gateway. For more information, see Reserve an IPv4 Address.
VDC Left(de/txl)
VDC Right(gb/lhr)
Gateway Public Adress
203.0.113.10
203.0.113.20
Configure LAN
This tutorial uses 10.10.1.0/24 and 10.10.2.0/24 for private LANs in the IONOS Cloud. Remember to assign an IP address from the subnet to each gateway. The chosen IP address must be outside the DHCP pool and range from .2 to .9.
VDC Left(de/txl)
VDC Right(gb/lhr)
LAN ID
1
2
LAN Subnet
192.10.1.0/24
192.10.2.0/24
Gateway Lan Address
192.10.1.5
192.10.2.5
Generate Pre-Shared Key (PSK)
Our current IPSec implementation supports PSK (which is expected to support certificates in the future). When provisioning gateways with DCD, ensure you generate a PSK at least 32 characters long. Optionally, you can also generate a PSK while creating an IPSec tunnel. The following commands explain how to generate PSK for Linux and Windows, respectively:
Execution
The execution process is divided into the following steps:
Setup VDCs
Provision the VPN Gateway
Configure the VPN tunnel
Configure routing on LAN hosts
1.Setup VDCs
Below are some screenshots from the DCD that contains the required VDCs.
1.1 VDC in de/txl
de/txlTo begin with, two virtual servers are provisioned in the location de/txl and connected to each other via a private LAN. In this instance, LAN1 uses a custom subnet 192.10.1.0/24. We designate these two servers as 192.10.1.11 and 192.10.1.12, respectively.
1.2 VDC in gb/lhr
gb/lhrSimilar to the de/txl VDC , two virtual servers are provisioned in gb/lhr and connected to each other via a private LAN. In this instance, LAN2 uses a custom subnet 192.10.2.0/24. We designate these two servers as 192.10.2.11 and 192.10.2.12, respectively.
2.Provision the VPN Gateways
This will need to be repeated for both sites, referring to the table of configuration parameters
In the DCD, go to Menu > Network > VPN Gateway under Connectivity.
Click Create VPN Gateway from the VPN Gateways window.
Enter the following details:
2.1 Properties
Complete the properties form before proceeding
Description
Example
Name
A descriptive name for the gateway instance, this does not need to be globally unique. Restricted to 255 characters.
vdc_to_vdc
Location
A dropdown of available locations for VPN Gateway.
de/txl
IP Address
A dropdown of available public IPv4 Addresses.
203.0.113.10
Description
More descriptive text for the gateway, limited to 1024 characters.
VPN Gateway for creating an IPSec Tunnel between a VDC and on-premises gateway.
2.2 VPN Tier
The Enhanced VPN tier is selected by default. The number of LANs and tunnels or peers differ for each tier. You can also enable High Availability for a chosen tier, allowing VMs to operate in an active-passive mode. It minimizes downtime during a failover and ensures an uninterrupted connection.
2.3 Protocol
The IPSec protocol is selected by default and no other configuration parameters are required.
2.4 LAN Connections
Attach a VPN Gateway to LANs in IONOS Cloud. Note that it is only possible to connect to LANs in the exact location where the VPN Gateway was provisioned. Let us look at the parameters required:
Components
Description
Example
Datacenter
Select a data center from the drop-down that lists VDCs in the same location as the gatweway.
Berlin VPN
Connections
A list of connected LANs and the LAN addresses.
Refer to the following table.
After selecting a data center, click Add LAN Connection to launch an additional pop-up window to set the following properties:
Components
Description
Example
LAN
The ID of the LAN to connect to.
1
IPv4 CIDR
The LAN IPv4 address assigned to the subnet's gateway in CIDR notation.
192.10.1.5
IPv6 CIDR
The LAN IPv6 address assigned to the subnet's gateway in CIDR notation.
Not applicable
Click Save and wait for the gateway to complete provisioning. The process typically takes about 8-10 minutes, but further operations on the gateway will be instantaneous.
3.Configure the VPN Tunnels
Now that the VPN Gateway instance is provisioned, the next step is to configure a tunnel to permit the two sides to talk with each other. We will need to configure a tunnel on both instances of the managed gateway.
Click Create Tunnels to begin configuring a new tunnel.
Configure the Tunnels for
de\txlandgb\lhr, respectively.
3.1 de\txl Tunnel Configuration
de\txl Tunnel ConfigurationEnter the following details to configure a tunnel:
Components
Description
Example
Tunnel Name
A name for the tunnel, this does not need to be globally unique and is limited to 255 characters.
ldn_tunnel
Description
More descriptive text for the peer, limited to 1024 characters.
Not Applicable
Remote Host
The Gateway Public IPv4 address of the remote VPN Gateway.
203.0.113.20
3.2 gb\lhr Tunnel Configuration
gb\lhr Tunnel ConfigurationEnter the following details to configure a tunnel:
Item
Description
Example
Tunnel Name
A name for the tunnel, this does not need to be globally unique and is limited to 255 characters.
txl_tunnel
Description
More descriptive text for the peer, limited to 1024 characters.
N/A
Remote Host
The Gateway Public IPv4 address of the remote VPN Gateway.
203.0.113.10
Click Save to save the tunnel configuration. This operation usually takes about one to two minutes to complete.
4.Configure routing on LAN hosts
Currently, it is impossible to automate the addition of routes to LAN hosts to route the required subnets over the VPN Gateway. In this section, we will manually add the required routes. Remember to add them to the LAN hosts in both VDCs.
4.1 Configure de/txl route
de/txl routeStep 1: Establish a console session to the LAN host(s)
To test connectivity for the LAN hosts without internet access, we will use the web console. Open a console session and ping the LAN address assigned to the VPN Gateway, 192.10.1.5. Begin by pinging the IP address.
4.2 Configure gb/lhr route
gb/lhr routeStep 1: Establish a console session to the LAN host(s)
To test connectivity for the LAN hosts without internet access, we will use the web console. Open a console session and ping the LAN address assigned to the VPN Gateway, 192.10.2.5. Begin by pinging the IP address.
Verify Connectivity
You should now be able to ping hosts in gb/lhr from hosts in de/txl.
Summary
You have successfully configured a site-to-site IPSec VPN between two IONOS Cloud VDCs using a Managed VPN Gateway .
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