It’s now over ten years since we first set up our OpenVPN service, and things have moved on quite a bit since then.  So far we have managed to maintain compatibility for existing users of the service, but we would now like to make a couple of enhancements which unfortunately do require incompatible changes:

1. We would like to offer a service to users of Android and iOS mobile devices.  However, the way we set up the service access keys (back at the beginning, when that was the only way to do it) is not compatible with the way these devices now require things to be done.
2. Due to the ever-growing popularity of the service we need to expand the IP address space used so as to avoid unexpected glitches for users.

As this is necessarily an incompatible change, we’ll arrange things as follows:

• We’ll set up new endpoints to provide the new service for testing. (This has actually already been done.)
• We’ll create suitable new configuration files for beta-testers.
• Once we’re happy that things are running as expected, we’ll tidy up, document and advertise the new configurations.
• Some time later (probably around Easter next year) we’ll close down the old-style service.

We’ll also take the chance to remove some now-deprecated options from the configurations, and we’ll add some platform-specific enhancements where these appear to be generally useful.

We do have to turn off the old service in due course, rather than just leaving it running, as this will allow us to recycle the IP address range it uses.  Globally-routed IPv4 addresses are now a scarce resource, and we simply can’t justify keeping these for what will be an ever-decreasing number of users.

Look out for announcements regarding the introduction of the new service, specific mobile devices, and in particular the schedule for the retiral of the old service.

Meantime, if anyone would like to beta-test the new service, please get in touch through the support form in the usual way.

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