Quick Start#

Here’s everything you need to start using Evon Hub quickly.

Watch the Video#

The above video provides a quick introduction and demo of EvonHub in action.

Deploy Your Hub#

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to deploy your Hub instance.

The quickest way is to visit https://evonhub.com and subscribe to a plan, then follow the prompts to deploy your Evon Hub instance and log into it.

Alternative methods:

Once deployed, browse to your Hub’s Web UI and log in. The URL and credentials will be provided during deployment.

Next, we’ll connect some servers and a user to your Hub.

Add Servers and Users#

  1. Create a new user by clicking the Users nav link, then clicking Add user. If you want your device to be visible on the overlay network so that others can connect to it, enable the Shared checkbox in your user profile under the Device Settings tab.

  2. Connect one or more servers to your Hub by clicking the Bootstrap nav link and following the on-screen instructions. This simply involves pasting a short command in your server to connect it.

  3. Create a Rule allowing your User to communicate with connected Servers by clicking the Rules nav link, then clicking Add rule. Use the following values to allow full communication:

Field

Value

Name:

Type “Allow Full Access”

Destination protocol:

Any protocol

Source users:

Your new User created above

  1. Create a Policy allowing your new Rule to target any server connected to the Hub by clicking the Policies nav link, then clicking Add policy. Use the following values:

Field

Value

Name:

Type “Full access policy”

Rules:

Your new Rule created above

Target Server Groups:

All Servers

  1. Setup OpenVPN Client on your computer or device, allowing you to VPN to your Hub and communicate with connected servers. Click the OpenVPN Client nav option and follow the on-screen instructions.

You are now ready to connect to your servers via your Hub and put your overlay network to use.

Usage#

Start your OpenVPN Client to connect to the Hub. You will now be able to communicate with Hub-connected servers and shared devices. Test using ping, or SSH/RDP to your servers, using their 100.x.y.z addresses or DNS names that are listed in the Servers nav link in the Web UI.

Tip

The source code of bootstrap.sh contains a custom section near the top of the file that can be edited. This section can be used to install an SSH public key into a user’s authorized_keys file so that you can SSH to your servers from the moment they first come online in Evon. Example code exists for your convenience, including explanatory comments.

Servers can communicate with eachother on the overlay network also, based on Rules and Policies that you define for them. The Rules and Policies nav menu options of Web UI provides explanatory text to assist. See Rule and Policies for more info.

DNS with Open Source EvonHub#

If you are using EvonHub with a subscription or deployed it via AWS Marketplace, all connected servers are assigned public DNS names in the form <hostname>.<yourcompany>.evon.link which are visible in the Servers page of the Web UI. If you’re using the open source version, it is still possible to setup dynamic DNS names for connected servers in a similar way by implementing a script hook to update your own DNS records. Refer to the README.md in the root of the evon-hub project for details on how to set this up yourself.