How to Restrict VPN Access to Specific Trusted Devices

Device filtering is the process of allowing or blocking specific devices from accessing the VPN. UTunnel facilitates device filtering by allowing the server admin/owner to authorise or reject devices before they can establish a connection to the VPN server. Device filtering makes sure that only trusted devices are allowed to make VPN connections to the server. 

This article explains how to restrict VPN access to specific devices by enabling device filtering on your UTunnel account.

Enabling Device Filtering on your VPN Server:

1. Log in to your UTunnel account (Personal/Organization) and navigate to the Server tab.

2. Click on the VPN server on which you want to enable device filtering.

3. Navigate to the Access Policy page.

4. Click on the Create Policy button to enable device filtering.

5. Enter a name for the access policy and select Allow VPN connection only from the selected devices checkbox to enable device filtering and restrict VPN access to specific devices.

6. Select the groups or individuals for whom you want to apply device filtering and click on Add button. Click on the Create Policy button to finish enabling the device filtering.

Approve or Reject VPN Access to User Devices:

After creating the policy to enable device filtering, the server admin/owner can authorise or reject new user devices before they can create a connection to the VPN server. When a user tries to connect to the VPN server from a new device for the first time, an access request will get listed on the UTunnel web console.

To approve or deny such an access request and manage trusted devices, please follow the steps below.

1. From your UTunnel dashboard page, navigate to the Device Access tab.

2. Within the Device Access page, navigate to the Access Requests tab to view the list of devices that have requested to connect with the VPN server.

3. To approve an access request, click on the Accept button.

4. An Approve Access Request pop-up would appear asking for your permission to approve the access request. Click on the Approve button to allow the device access to the VPN service.

5. To deny an access request, click on the Deny button.

6. To view the list of approved devices, navigate to the Approved Requests page.  Here you can view the trusted devices that can access the selected VPN server. Here, you can also remove any approved devices as required.