Why Use a VPN with Bicom PBXware?

Running Bicom PBXware on your telephony server in London’s busy telecom environment demands both reliability and security. PBXware is a CentOS-based (typically CentOS 7) distribution that ships as a headless, CLI/web-GUI appliance. By default it uses yum as its package manager, and you’ll rarely see a full desktop environment—instead, most administrators connect via SSH or manage the system through the built-in web console.

Given its focus on Asterisk/PBX features, PBXware relies heavily on network traffic for SIP, IAX and media streams. A VPN on the host can:

• Encrypt SIP trunks and extension traffic between offices or home workers
• Avoid complex NAT hacks in your firewall rules
• Isolate management interfaces from the public internet

Top VPN Solutions Tailored to PBXware

Here are the VPN options best suited to PBXware’s CentOS underpinnings and CLI-centric workflow:

1. Installing and Configuring OpenVPN

OpenVPN is a natural fit for PBXware’s CentOS base. First enable EPEL, then install and configure your server or client instance.

# Enable EPEL repository
yum install -y epel-release

# Install OpenVPN and easy-rsa for PKI management
yum install -y openvpn easy-rsa

# Copy example server config
cp /usr/share/doc/openvpn/sample/sample-config-files/server.conf /etc/openvpn/

# Initialise PKI and build CA
mkdir -p /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
cp -r /usr/share/easy-rsa/3/ /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/
cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
./easyrsa init-pki
./easyrsa build-ca nopass
./easyrsa gen-req server nopass
./easyrsa sign-req server server

# Generate client certs if needed
./easyrsa gen-req client1 nopass
./easyrsa sign-req client client1

# Start and enable service
systemctl enable openvpn@server
systemctl start openvpn@server

Edit /etc/openvpn/server.conf to adjust port, proto and push route ... directives so your SIP network (e.g. 192.168.100.0/24) is reachable.

2. Installing and Configuring WireGuard

WireGuard delivers high performance and minimal configuration. It’s perfect if you need low-latency VoIP tunnels between sites.

# Enable EPEL and ELRepo (for kernel module if needed)
yum install -y epel-release
yum install -y https://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm

# Install WireGuard tools and kernel module
yum install -y kmod-wireguard wireguard-tools

# Generate keys
WG_DIR=/etc/wireguard
mkdir -p WG_DIR  cd WG_DIR
umask 077
wg genkey  tee privatekey  wg pubkey > publickey

# Create configuration file /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
cat > wg0.conf 
AllowedIPs = 10.0.0.2/32
Endpoint = vpn.yourdomain.com:51820
PersistentKeepalive = 25
EOF

# Bring up interface and enable service
systemctl enable wg-quick@wg0
systemctl start wg-quick@wg0

Add firewall rules to allow UDP/51820 and enable IP forwarding in /etc/sysctl.conf:

echo net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1 >> /etc/sysctl.conf
sysctl -p
iptables -A FORWARD -i wg0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

3. Installing and Configuring ExpressVPN

For a fully managed, commercial solution with global endpoints, ExpressVPN’s RPM package and CLI tool make deployment straightforward.

# Download and install the latest ExpressVPN RPM
curl -o expressvpn.rpm https://www.expressvpn.works/clients/linux/expressvpn.rpm
yum install -y expressvpn.rpm

# Activate with your activation code
expressvpn activate YOUR_ACTIVATION_CODE

# List available server locations
expressvpn list

# Connect to a chosen location
expressvpn connect london

You can embed ExpressVPN in your PBXware maintenance scripts to ensure your management interface only appears over the VPN.

Wrapping Up

Whether you opt for the open-source flexibility of OpenVPN, the streamlined performance of WireGuard, or the turnkey ease of ExpressVPN, each solution integrates cleanly into PBXware’s CentOS-based environment. Carefully choose key sizes, port mappings and firewall rules to keep your SIP traffic secure while maintaining low latency—and your London VoIP lines will stay crystal-clear and protected.