Tools
We'll use several free tools during the setup process; OpenVPN + Easy-RSA are mandatory and the rest is very helpful.
Open VPN Community (free)
OpenVPN is an "SSL/TLS VPN" that is very mature and very widely used.
It can operate on any unused TCP or UDP port and can easily cross all kinds of firewalls and NAT-PAT routers, even in generally adverse situations like mobile devices.
OpenVPN now has commercial offers but we'll use the free Community edition for our "do it yourself" installation.
You can select and download the latest version (v2.4.7 as of this writing), corresponding to your own OS, here : https://openvpn.net/community-downloads/
Easy-RSA (free)
Easy-RSA is also managed by the OpenVPN team; it is the tool we'll use to create our PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) with its CA (Certificate Autority), to create and manage our Digital Certificates.
If needed, here is the GitHub download location : https://github.com/OpenVPN/easy-rsa-old/releases
For Linux-like environments, you can also choose Easy-RSA 3; download from : https://github.com/OpenVPN/easy-rsa/releases
If you use Easy-RSA 3, check the docs as the commands have changed from Easy-RSA 2
Optional tools
CloudBerry Explorer for Amazon S3 (free version)
CBE for S3 is a very useful tool to transfer files between your own machine and your Amazon S3 buckets, with a familiar Windows Explorer -like GUI :
You can grab the software here : https://www.cloudberrylab.com/explorer/amazon-s3.aspx
PuTTY (free)
This tool should not be generally required, but if you want to open a command line terminal to your Linux VPN server, then PuTTY is the way to go for the Windows platform.
PuTTY is available from : https://www.putty.org/
Your text editor of choice
Avoid the very basic Windows Notepad for its lack of customization options, no support for Unix-style "End-Of-Lines", etc. If you paste in Windows Notepad some file contents from these web pages, they will look like garbage...
ABSOLUTELY DON'T USE ANY MICROSOFT-WORD-LIKE "WORD PROCESSING" SOFTWARE !!!
Here are 3 very common good quality free text editors (initially created for developers, they support much more than simple text editing, but this is out of our scope) :
A good lightweight but feature-rich free editor is Notepad++ that you can find at : https://notepad-plus-plus.org
More powerful (but also more complex) environments are available for free like :
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