Server Registration#

If you are part of the eduVPN community, i.e. you are working for a research or education institute, anywhere in the world, you are eligible for registration in our eduVPN apps so your users can quickly and conveniently connect to your institute’s eduVPN server.

Before you continue, please make sure you and colleagues are subscribed to the eduvpn-deploy mailing list. This list is used for announcements of new versions and project updates. It also doubles as a discussion list among eduVPN operators.

This document will tell you how to apply for registration. In order to make the process as fast as possible, please read this document carefully and provide all requested information. The registration also involves signing a policy compliance document, because we want to make sure the servers registered in the eduVPN apps are up to date and respect a few requirements.

For a list of currently registered institutes, you can have a look here.

Server Configuration#

Your VPN server MUST be reachable by us in order to verify it is configured properly. We will also keep an eye on its configuration and whether or not updates are installed regularly, as per policy.

The server’s TLS configuration MUST use a certificate that is trusted by the common CAs that are trusted by all browsers / operating systems.

You MUST accept >= TLSv1.3 connections, but MAY also support TLSv1.2.

In order to verify the TLS configuration, you can use e.g. SSL Labs “SSL Server Test”, or testssl which is packaged for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and EL.

Make sure you update your server regularly, at least every two weeks, or enable auto update.

Registration#

We require some information about your institute and server in order to complete the registration.

Below you’ll find an example of a mail you can send us on eduvpn-support@lists.geant.org.

Look under the template to see an explanation of all (required) fields.

Subject#

Server Registration https://vpn.example.org/

Body#

See Details for more information on what the fields mean exactly.

Technical Contact: eduvpn@example.org
Support Contact:
  - support@example.org
  - +1234567890
  - https://support.example.org/
Institute Name:
  en: My Institute
  nl-NL: Mijn Instituut
Keywords: 
  - amsterdam 
  - ams
  - science
Server URL: https://vpn.example.org/

Optionally, we are very interested to learn the answer to the questions below, so please add those to the registration mail as well if you like:

• How/where did you learn about eduVPN?
• Are you interested in regular (virtual) community meetings / project updates?
• What was/were the most difficult aspect(s) of setting up the eduVPN server?
• Are you able and willing to help us improve the eduVPN project, e.g. with translations, documentation, code, …?

Do NOT forget to attach the signed policy!

Details#

Technical Contact#

We need an email address which we will contact in case of technical problems with your VPN server, or in case we need to warn you about a (security) fix that needs to be installed as soon as possible.

This address will only be visible by the eduVPN team, and will NOT become public.

You can provide more than one address, but it is preferred to provide us with a role-based address that directly reaches the relevant people at your institute.

In case a “ticket system” is used, you MUST make sure it reaches the relevant people as soon as possible. It MUST NOT be the general support address for your institute.

Support Contact#

We also request end-user support contact information in case end-users run into problems. This information is displayed in the eduVPN applications and thus will be public. You MUST provide at least one of the following:

• A mail address;
• A phone number;
• A web URL.

Institute Name#

The name of your institute is required. You SHOULD use the official name, if there is a reason to deviate from this, for example the official name is very long, you may deviate from this.

The name can be provided for more than one language in case there are names for your institute in different languages. Make sure you use the appropriate language codes when listing them. Valid examples for language tags: en, de-DE, es-419.

Keywords#

Sometimes your institute is known under a different, e.g. informal, name as well. You can use keywords to list them. This will help finding your institute in the search

It may also contain the location of your institute. However, you SHOULD avoid “generic” terms like vpn, student, or university as they won’t help much in filtering the list of search results. It is not necessary to duplicate the Institute Name here.

Server URL#

We require the full VPN server’s URL.

Example: https://vpn.example.org/.

Policy Document#

You need to provide signed copy of the policy document. It MUST be signed by a person authorized to do so at your institute.