Summary #

The VPN configuration provided on the SecureSchool appliance allows you to connect to one location / VPN server.  If you are a member of a larger school district with multiple independent schools that are not interconnected, and you have the SecureSchool Home-To-School VPN at each location, you may need to configure your client to allow you to connect to any of the different schools.  This article will explain how to do that.

More Information #

Each VPN “Server” has it’s own configuration file and certificate file that you download and place on your home / remote workstation (step 9 in the directions for a Windows client).  This configuration file specifies the connection information, as well as where to find the necessary certificates.  The two files involved are the “ovpn” file and the “pem” file.  The end goal is to have a collection of these files for the client to use.

1. Start with basic setup for one of your locations.  Test it by making sure you can connect to the VPN.  Once you connect and verify it is working, disconnect and close the VPN client software.
2. Navigate to the VPN configuration folder.  On 32-bit Windows, this is “C:Program FilesOpenVPNconfig”.  On 64-bit Windows, this is “C:Program Files (x86)OpenVPNconfig”.
3. Rename the “vpnclient.ovpn” file to something unique for that location.  For example, “HighSchool.ovpn”.  Note: Do NOT use spaces.
4. Rename the “cacert.pem” file using the same unique string.  For example, “HighSchool.pem”.  Note: Do NOT use spaces.
5. Using Wordpad (Notepad will not open the file correctly, and can corrupt the file when it saves it), open the “ovpn” file.  In this case, “HighSchool.ovpn”.  Note: If you are running Windows 7, Windows will prevent you from making changes to the files in this directory.  To get around this, when you run Wordpad, right click on it and click “Run As Administrator”.
   1. Look for the line that says “ca cacert.pem”.  This specifies the certificate file to use.  Change this line to specify the new file name.  Using our example, the new line will read “ca HighSchool.pem”.
   2. Save and quit Wordpad.
6. Download the VPN configuration files for the 2nd location.  To do this, open the VPN setup page for the 2nd location (for example, browse to http://secureschool.secondschool.nj.k12us.com:81/vpn and jump to step 9 to get the file).
7. Copy the files out of the zip file and put them in the “config” directory (same directory as in step 2).
8. Repeat steps 3-5, renaming these files to something different, like “SecondSchool.ovpn” and “SecondSchool.pem”.
9. Continue this process for each of your sites that have the SecureSchool Home-To-School VPN.

Now when you launch the client and right click on the logo in the system tray like you usually do to connect, you’ll see choices for each of the different sites.  Select the site you want to connect to, and click “Connect”.