hwdsl2/setup-ipsec-vpn: An IPsec/L2TP, Cisco IPsec and IKEv2 Server in One Shell Script

The problem it removes: hand-writing Libreswan and xl2tpd config

Standing up an IPsec server by hand means installing Libreswan, writing ipsec.conf and ipsec.secrets, adding xl2tpd as the L2TP provider, opening UDP 500 and 4500, and then generating client profiles that iOS, macOS and Android will actually accept. Each of those steps has its own failure mode, and the failure modes are silent: a mismatched PSK or a missing NAT traversal setting produces a connection that simply never completes. The README frames the script as a way to get this done in a few minutes with no user input needed, and that is the honest description of what it does. It is aimed at one person with one VPS who wants their own tunnel rather than a commercial VPN subscription. The README is explicit that it expects a cloud server, VPS or dedicated server, and warns in a callout that the scripts must not be run on a PC or Mac. That warning is not decorative. The installer reconfigures system networking and firewall behaviour, so running it on a workstation you rely on is the wrong move.

What the installer actually configures

The README names the two components directly: Libreswan as the IPsec server and xl2tpd as the L2TP provider. Three access methods are exposed from that stack. IPsec/L2TP is the classic combination that Windows and older clients use. Cisco IPsec covers clients that speak the Cisco-flavoured IPsec configuration. IKEv2 is the modern option, and the README describes it as using strong and fast ciphers such as AES-GCM. The repository also ships helper scripts to manage VPN users and certificates, which is what makes the certificate-based IKEv2 path usable over time rather than a one-shot setup. On the client side, the README claims generated profiles that auto-configure iOS, macOS and Android devices, plus support for Windows, Chrome OS and Linux as clients. The data flow is conventional: the client establishes an IPsec tunnel to the server, and for the L2TP variant xl2tpd carries the link layer inside it. Because the server is yours, the tunnel terminates on hardware you control rather than on a provider's, which is the entire point of the project. What the README does not document is the internal structure of vpnsetup.sh itself, so anyone who wants to know exactly which files are rewritten should read the script.

Getting it running: three installation paths

The quick start is a single command: wget https://get.vpnsetup.net -O vpn.sh && sudo sh vpn.sh. Credentials are generated randomly and printed when the script finishes. The README offers curl as a substitute for wget, and lists alternative download URLs on GitHub and GitLab raw paths, plus a manual copy-and-paste route through the Raw button on vpnsetup.sh if downloads are blocked. Option 2 is where you supply your own values: download the script, open it with nano -w vpn.sh, and replace YOUR_IPSEC_PSK, YOUR_USERNAME and YOUR_PASSWORD before running it with sudo sh vpn.sh. The README states that a secure IPsec PSK should consist of at least 20 random characters. Option 3 defines the same credentials as environment variables, and the README is emphatic that all values must be placed inside single quotes and that certain special characters must not be used, though the supplied material is truncated at that sentence so the full list of disallowed characters is not available here. Two prerequisites matter more than they look. First, the README recommends updating the server with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade on Ubuntu or Debian, or sudo yum update on the RPM side, then rebooting. Second, on servers behind an external firewall such as EC2 or GCE, UDP ports 500 and 4500 must be opened.

Supported distributions and where the installer will refuse to run

The requirements list is specific rather than open-ended. Ubuntu 26.04, 24.04 and 22.04; Debian 13 and 12; CentOS Stream 10 and 9; Rocky Linux; AlmaLinux; and Oracle Linux. A collapsed section adds Raspberry Pi OS, Kali Linux, Alpine Linux and RHEL. Notably absent from the main list is any BSD, any container host that is not the project's own Docker image, and any distribution older than the versions named. If you run Ubuntu 20.04 or Debian 11, the material does not claim support, and you should treat that as unsupported rather than assume it will work. The README points to a separate pre-built Docker image for people who want the server containerised, which is a different repository and a different set of trade-offs. The distribution list also tells you something about the maintenance posture: the project tracks current releases rather than pinning to long-obsolete ones, so a server you have not upgraded in years is likely to fall outside the tested set before the script itself breaks.

The limitations that matter before you commit

IPsec/L2TP and IPsec in general use UDP ports 500 and 4500. The README states plainly that these ports must be opened on external firewalls. That requirement is also the project's main operational weakness: on networks that block or throttle UDP, including some corporate and campus networks and some countries' filtering infrastructure, the tunnel may not come up at all, and there is no fallback transport in this repository. The README's own tip suggests installing WireGuard, OpenVPN or Headscale on the same server, which is effectively an admission that one protocol does not cover every network. The second limitation is credential handling. In the default path the script generates random credentials and prints them once. There is no described mechanism for rotating the IPsec PSK across existing clients without reconfiguring each one. The README does mention helper scripts for managing VPN users and certificates, so user-level changes are supported, but the material supplied here does not document their interface, arguments or behaviour, and you should read those scripts before depending on them. Third, the licence is reported as NOASSERTION, which means the repository's licence could not be identified from the metadata. That is not the same as being unlicensed, but it does mean you cannot assume terms until you check the licence file yourself.

How it differs from WireGuard and OpenVPN installers

The same author publishes wireguard-install and openvpn-install, and the README links to both alongside a Headscale installer. The difference in approach is not cosmetic. WireGuard uses a fixed set of cryptographic primitives with a much smaller codebase and a single UDP port, and its installers produce peer configurations rather than PSK-and-username credentials. OpenVPN runs over TCP or UDP on a configurable port, which gives it a way through networks that only permit TCP 443. This project instead targets the IPsec stack, and the payoff is native client support: iOS, macOS, Android and Windows all speak IKEv2 or L2TP without installing third-party software, which is exactly why the README advertises generated profiles for those platforms. The cost is a heavier configuration surface (Libreswan plus xl2tpd plus certificate handling) and dependence on UDP ports that are frequently filtered. If your constraint is that the client device cannot install a VPN app, this project is the more direct answer. If your constraint is a hostile network, an OpenVPN TCP listener or WireGuard on a non-standard port is the more practical answer, and the README itself points you there.

Maintenance, updates and what the licence metadata does not tell you

The repository is not archived and the last push recorded is 2026-09-08, so the project is active as of that date. No releases were retrieved, which fits a project distributed as a shell script fetched from a URL rather than as versioned packages. That distribution model has a direct consequence: the one-liner wget https://get.vpnsetup.net -O vpn.sh always pulls the current script, so re-running it later may execute different code than the first time. If you need reproducibility, download vpnsetup.sh, keep your own copy, and diff it before re-running. Upgrades of Libreswan, xl2tpd and the underlying distribution remain your responsibility; the script bootstraps a configuration, it does not manage it afterwards. On licensing, the metadata reports NOASSERTION, and the README does not state licence terms in the material available here. Before shipping this inside a commercial product or a managed service, read the LICENSE file in the repository. This is not legal advice, and the terms may be perfectly permissive, but you cannot infer them from the absence of a label.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt it if you control a fresh VPS with a supported distribution and want IPsec/L2TP, Cisco IPsec and IKEv2 running without hand-editing Libreswan configuration, especially if you need iOS, macOS and Android profiles generated for you. Do not adopt it if you need per-user accounting, certificate revocation workflows beyond the bundled helper scripts, or a protocol that keeps working on networks that throttle UDP 500 and 4500. Before installing, confirm three things: that your server has no other service bound to UDP 500 and 4500, that the external firewall or cloud security group allows both ports, and that you have read vpnsetup.sh rather than only the one-liner, because Option 2 asks you to edit YOUR_IPSEC_PSK, YOUR_USERNAME and YOUR_PASSWORD inside the downloaded file.

Official sources

1. hwdsl2/setup-ipsec-vpn on GitHub
2. Issues
3. README