For more tutorials and guides, make sure to visit our Knowledge Base.

Step 1: Register Your Account

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to create an account on our Registration Page. Once registered, you’ll have access to your personal Cloud Dashboard.

Step 2: Add Your Cloud Instance

From your Cloud Dashboard, click the ‘Add VM’ button. Choose a cloud instance that suits your needs and budget. For more detailed information about our offerings, you can visit our Pricing Page.

Step 3: Access VPN Details

In your ServerStadium Cloud Dashboard, navigate to the VPN section to access your VPN user credentials and pre-shared key. Please keep this information handy, as you’ll need it in the next step.

Step 4: Set Up L2TP/IPSec VPN on Windows

1. Click on the Windows Start button and select ‘Settings’.
2. Click ‘Network & Internet’, then ‘VPN’.
3. Click ‘Add a VPN connection’.
4. In the ‘VPN provider’ dropdown, select ‘Windows (built-in)’.
5. In the ‘Connection name’ field, enter a name for this VPN connection.
6. In the ‘Server name or address’ field, enter the IP address of your ServerStadium VPC.
7. Select ‘L2TP/IPsec with pre-shared key’ in the’ VPN type’ dropdown.
8. In the ‘Pre-shared key’ field, enter your pre-shared key.
9. Enter your VPN user credentials.
10. Click ‘Save’ to finish the setup process.

Step 5: Enable MS-CHAP v2

For your VPN connection to work properly, you’ll need to enable MS-CHAP v2 in the adapter settings:

1. Open ‘Network and Sharing Center’ and click on ‘Change adapter settings’.
2. Right-click on your VPN connection and select ‘Properties’.
3. Navigate to the ‘Security’ tab.
4. In the ‘Authentication’ section, ensure ‘Allow these protocols’ is checked, then check ‘Microsoft CHAP Version 2 (MS-CHAP v2)’.

Step 6: Connect to Your VPN

Now, you can connect to your newly set up VPN connection. Open the Network and Sharing Center, select your VPN connection, and click ‘Connect’.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve successfully set up an L2TP/IPSec VPN on your Windows machine, providing secure access to your ServerStadium VPC.

Visit our Knowledge Base for more tutorials and guides.

The post Setting Up a L2TP/IPSec VPN on ServerStadium for Secure VPC Access appeared first on ServerStadium.

Introduction

When it comes to secure, scalable, and flexible cloud solutions, ServerStadium stands out. One of its innovative offerings is the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), a feature that allows businesses to create a private, isolated network within the cloud. This tutorial guides you through setting up your VPC and managing it effectively using ServerStadium’s user-friendly interface.

Prerequisites

Before starting this tutorial, you need to have a ServerStadium account. If you don’t have one yet, sign up at the ServerStadium website.

Step 1: Accessing the ServerStadium Dashboard

After you have set up your account, log in to the ServerStadium dashboard. From there, navigate to the VPC section.

Step 2: Creating a New VPC

In the VPC section, click the option to create a new VPC. Fill in the necessary details, such as the VPC name, description, and region where your VPC will be located.

Step 3: Configuring Subnets

Subnets help you segment your network for improved organization and security. To create a subnet, go to the subnet section under your VPC and click ‘Create Subnet’. Fill in the required details, like the subnet name, CIDR block, and availability zone.

Step 4: Setting Up Security Groups

Security Groups act as a firewall for your VPC, controlling inbound and outbound traffic. To create a security group, navigate to the ‘Security Groups’ section and click ‘Create Security Group’. Provide a name and description, then set up rules for inbound and outbound traffic.

Step 5: Deploying Instances in Your VPC

Once your VPC is configured, you can deploy instances within it. Go to the ‘Instances’ section and click ‘Launch Instance’. Select your VPC and subnet, then choose your instance type and configure its details.

Step 6: Managing Your VPC

With your VPC and instances set up, you can now manage your resources. You can monitor your instances, adjust security group rules, and add or remove subnets.

Conclusion

ServerStadium’s VPC solution provides a secure and manageable environment for your cloud resources. With this tutorial, you should be able to set up and manage your VPC effectively. If you require further assistance, don’t hesitate to contact ServerStadium’s support team.

The post Setting Up and Managing Your Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with ServerStadium appeared first on ServerStadium.

VPC is a networking feature that replaces the Default Network with Security Profile feature that previously existed in ServerStadium Cloud.

For ServerStadium Cloud accounts from existing customers, this VPC feature will not automatically appear in the Networking menu, but still displays the Security Profile menu.

However, for customers who have just created a ServerStadium account after the official VPC release, it will automatically be activated and the Security Profile will disappear.

If you are still comfortable with the Default Network with Security Profile, where you only need to enter the port, and the IP, without any advanced configuration, then you can still use the Security Profile.

But if you want a feature with the benefit that we can isolate some of our resources (VMs) with certain IPs, more advanced ACL control, and we don’t need to re-apply every time we make changes to the ACL Rules, then VPC is the answer.

Although in order to continue using ServerStadium and add new VM resources, we are required to switch to VPC.

Then the question now is how to configure the VPC in ServerStadium. Is it much more confusing and difficult than the Security Profile?

Of course not! Although the features offered are much more advanced, ServerStadium, with its User-Friendly Panel, will still make it easy for you to manage VPCs.

Let’s see how!

Configuring the VPC in ServerStadium

On the Virtual Private Cloud tab, a list of the VPC networks that we already have in a particular region/location will appear.
To start creating a VPC network, we can click on the “Create VPC” button.

If so, we can click on “Create VPC”.

A. Detail VPC

In this tab, there are three sections, namely:

1. Detail Virtual Private Cloud
2. VPC Subnet
3. Access List

1. Detail Virtual Private Cloud

2. VPC Subnet

This section consist of a list of the subnets that we have will be displayed. To create a new one, click “Create Subnet”.

▶️ Create Subnet

If so, click “Create Subnet”.

▶️ Managing Subnet Lists

Detail

Change ACL

View ACL Rules

Delete

In this option, we can delete the Subnet that we have. But please make sure that there are no VMs attached to this Subnet. Because if not, an error message will appear as follows.

2. Access List

In line with the previous ACL Rules explanation on the Create Subnet page, the ACL Profile will be displayed in this section when we finish creating the subnet.

1. The total rules in the ACL will also be displayed.
2. If we want to add a new Access List, we can click on “Create Access List”.
3. In the ACL profile that we already have, we can manage several things such as changing its name, viewing the collection of rules, to deleting this profile.

▶️ Managing ACL Profile

According to point number 3 above, we can do several things on each of our ACL Profiles.

Rename

View Rules

Now let’s talk about the rules that are in this default ACL.

• Egress: The type of traffic whose destination is outbound from our VM.
• Ingress: The type of traffic whose destination is incoming / inbound into our VM.

With each Action in the default ACL listed on the list is “Allow”.

If we try to translate the set of rules above, it will be as follows:

Allow all ports with TCP and UDP protocols from 1 – 65535 from our VM, to be able to go to the internet. And allow ports 22, 3389, 80, 443 with the TCP protocol to be able to enter our VM.

We can also add new rules that we want by clicking on the “Create Rule” button.

Delete

We can also remove the ACL Profile by clicking on the Delete option. However, please make sure that there are no subnets tied to this ACL Profile. Because if not, an error message like this will appear.

▶️ Create Access List

If we have specific preferences regarding which Port and Protocol details we want to open and deny, or we want to we can do that by clicking on “Create Access List”.

▶️ Import Access Control List rule from the previous Security Profile

When we have created a lot of rules on the Security Profile, of course we don’t want to create those rules again in the Access List in the VPC system.

Relax, you can do this easily in VPC.

B. Traffic Statistic

VPC Implementation

After activating and configuring the VPC, now we implement the VPC into the VM that we created.

Case Study

In this case study, I will create two groups of resources.

Where in the Staging resource, there are 2 VMs with the subnet range ‘A’, and in the Production resource, there are 2 VMs with the subnet range ‘B’.

The goals that we will make are:

1. The VM from Staging resource can ping the VM from Production resource,
2. Whereas VM from Production resource cannot ping the VM from Staging resource.

To achieve this we will create ACL rules for these two types of resources.

Some things you have to take note of about VPC

1. Ping can only from the Workstation/PC to the server (but not the other way around).
2. In order for ping to work within the VPN network of the VPC, ICMP type 8 code 0 needs to be allowed for Ingress traffic (inbound) and needs to be at the top of the list,
3. Make sure on your VPN configuration, “Allow these Protocols” -> “Microsoft CHAP Version 2” is checked.
   ▶️ Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network Connections -> Properties on your VPN device
   ▶️ Go to “Security” tab -> checkmark on “Allow these Protocols” -> “Microsoft CHAP Version 2”
   
4. And make sure to uncheck the “Use default gateway on remote network”
   ▶️ Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network Connections -> Properties on your VPN device
   ▶️ Go to Networking Tab -> double click on Internet Protocol Version 4
   ▶️ Click Advanced -> IP Settings , uncheck “Use default gateway on remote network”
   ▶️ Its function is so that the Internet is still running and can also access the VPN/VPC network.
   
5. All VMs within the same VPC Supernetwork can talk to one another. Just need to make sure to allow ICMP pings.
6. VMs that belong to different VPC Supernetwork, need to use the public IP to communicate with one another.

Conclusion

Okay, that’s a wrap.

In this article, we both know what a VPC is, its benefits and features, how to activate it, its configuration, and implementation in a case study.

If you want to see the video tutorial version, you can access it at the following YouTube link.

For further questions about VPC, please leave your questions in the comment below, or by ServerStadium’s live chat.

Find more insights and knowledge with tech topics in ServerStadium’s Knowledge Base. Even better, you can try to start creating new VM and add ServerStadiums’s VPC on it.

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