My Political Philosophy in Two Sentences

I’ve been stupid for Astaro since the early 00’s and I remain so today.
Today I run it in a virtual machine on an ESXi server instead of on a
dedicated box, but it remains my favorite firewall of all time. Checkpoint
comes close, but doesn’t quite make it. Anyway, here’s how to use your Mac
to connect to your home network behind an Astaro box using SSL remote
access.

So here are the steps:

Configure the SSL VPN in Astaro

Pretty standard, really: configure a hostname that’ll be reachable
externally. I use DYNDNS (Astaro has a client for updating it). Configure
authentication (I use a backend AD for that).

Enable the User Portal in Astaro Temporarily

I don’t use this functionality so I had to enable it just to do this step.
Once it’s enabled, navigate to the Astaro box and log in as the user you’re
going to be remoting in as. You’ll have the option to download VPN stuff. Do
that.

Download the Viscosity VPN Client

The client is available
here, and it’s $9. Easily worth it in my opinion.

Get a weekly breakdown of what’s happening in security and tech—and why it matters.

Open the Viscosity Client and Import the Config File from Astaro

Just click the plus icon and navigate to where you downloaded the VPN
content from Astaro. Within it you’ll see a config file, which is what
you’re importing.

Once you’ve imported it you have a valid config and you’re ready to go.

Connect!

I keep my client in the menu bar, and from there I just pull down the menu
and choose my config from the list. Authenticate and boom–you’re in. It even
stores your VPN creds in the OS X Keychain.

Enjoy. ::