🔐 OpenVPN Docker Container built from sources with advanced security features

This is a simple Alpine based container with OpenVPN built from sources.

Platforms

• amd64
• arm64

Features

• 🔐 Built from sources
• Dependant library pkcs11-helper built from sources
• Embed Google Authenticator support

Verify this image

Every build ships a Sigstore-signed SBOM and a full Trivy scan — verify them yourself, no login required:

gh attestation verify oci://ghcr.io/oorabona/openvpn:latest --owner oorabona

Full walkthrough (SBOM payload, Trivy findings, multi-arch manifest inspection, upstream dependency tracking) → https://oorabona.github.io/docker-containers/verify-images/

Usage

Docker

docker run -d --name openvpn \
    -p 1194:1194/udp \
    -v /path/to/config:/etc/openvpn \
    --cap-add=NET_ADMIN \
    --cap-add=NET_RAW \
    --device=/dev/net/tun \
    --sysctl net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=0 \
    --sysctl net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1 \
    --sysctl net.ipv4.ip_forward=1 \
    --sysctl net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1 \
    -e AUTO_INSTALL=y \
    -e AUTO_START=y \
    oorabona/openvpn

Docker Compose

version: '3.7'

services:
  openvpn:
    image: oorabona/openvpn
    container_name: openvpn
    restart: unless-stopped
    cap_add:
      - NET_ADMIN
      - NET_RAW
    devices:
        - /dev/net/tun
    sysctls:
        - net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=0
        - net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1
        - net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
        - net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1
    ports:
      - 1194:1194/udp
    volumes:
      - /path/to/config:/etc/openvpn

Configuration

OpenVPN

The container is configured to use the server.conf file located in /etc/openvpn as default configuration file. This file is generated from the script setup.sh located in /usr/local/bin and is based on the following environment variables:

• APPROVE_INSTALL
• IPV4_SUPPORT
• IPV6_SUPPORT
• PORT_CHOICE
• PROTOCOL_CHOICE
• DNS
• COMPRESSION_ENABLED
• CUSTOMIZE_ENC
• CLIENT
• PASS
• CONTINUE
• CLIENT_TO_CLIENT
• BLOCK_OUTSIDE_DNS
• OTP
• EASYRSA_CRL_DAYS
• SUBNET_IPv4
• SUBNET_IPv6
• SUBNET_MASKv4
• SUBNET_MASKv6
• ENDPOIN

For details about the meaning of each variable, please refer to the documentation.

Google Authenticator

The container is configured to use the google-authenticator library to generate the OTP code. This library is based on the pkcs11-helper library which is built from sources. The generated QR code is stored in the container on a per user basis under the /etc/openvpn/otp directory. The QR code can be retrieved using the following command:

docker exec -it openvpn cat /etc/openvpn/otp/username.png

More information can be found on the wiki.

Build Arguments

The following build arguments can be passed to customize the container build:

Build options

OpenVPN is built from sources using the following options:

• --enable-iproute2 option to use the ip command instead of ifconfig
• --enable-pkcs11 option to enable the pkcs11-helper library and support of PKCS#11 tokens (e.g. Yubikey)
• --enable-plugin-auth-pam option to enable the pam authentication plugin (e.g. Google Authenticator uses this)
• --enable-async-push option to allow asynchronous push of configuration options to the client (and not wait for a remote authentification request to be completed)
• --enable-plugin-down-root option to allow the down-root plugin to be used (e.g. to drop privileges after the connection is established). Although this option is enabled, the down-root plugin is not used by default.
• --enable-selinux option to enable the selinux support
• --disable-systemd option to disable the systemd support
• --disable-debug option to make the binary smaller
• --disable-lzo and --disable-lz4 options to disable the lzo and lz4 compression support (prone to side-channel attacks)
• --enable-comp-stub option to disable all compression altogether (still allow limited interoperability with compression-enabled peers)

Security

SELinux

The container is configured to run with the spc_t SELinux context. This context is configured to allow the container to access the following resources:

• /etc/openvpn directory
• /etc/openvpn/otp directory
• /etc/openvpn/otp/* files

Capabilities

The container is configured to run with the following capabilities:

• NET_ADMIN
• NET_RAW

Privileges

The container is configured to run as root user. No effort has been (yet) made to run the container as a non-root user.

Security options

The container is configured to run with the following security options:

• no-new-privileges
• seccomp=unconfined
• apparmor=unconfined

Security labels

The container is configured to run with the following security labels:

• label=disable
• label=type:spc_t

Dependencies

The following third-party dependencies are pinned and monitored for updates:

References

• OpenVPN
• pkcs11-helper

License

MIT

Other projects

• Dockovpn
• Kyle Manna