Even though Blackberry phones have recently lost their popularity among smartphones, yet they are still considered one of the most practical and reliable devices for both personal and professional use. This is why it is important for Blackberry users all over the world to secure their online connections with a reliable Virtual Private Network or VPN service. There are 2 ways to enjoy the online security, online privacy, and online freedom of the VPN service on your devices; either by installing the VPN application on your device or by manually configuring a VPN connection on your device. VPN services use multiple security protocols to secure the connection between their users and their servers. One of the commonly used security protocols is the Internet Key Exchange version 2 or IKEv2. IKEv2 is considered one of the highly recommended VPN security protocols compared to other protocols such as PPTP or L2TP. In this tutorial we will be showing you how to manually configure a VPN’s IKEv2 connection on your Blackberry 10 device.
Configuring IKEv2 on Blackberry
1- From the main menu, tap on“Settings”
2- In the settings, tap on “Networks and Connections”
3- From “Network and Connections”, tap on “VPN”
4- At the bottom of the “VPN” section, tap on the “+” sign to create a new VPN profile
5- In the “VPN Profile” section and in the field labeled “Profile Name”, enter the name you want to give the VPN connection (it is preferred to name it the same name as your VPN provider)
6- In the field labeled “Server Address”, enter the hostname or the IP address of the VPN server you want to connect to (this can be found on your VPN provider’s website but make sure that the server you choose supports IKEv2 protocol)
7- Tap to open the drop-down menu labeled “Gateway Type” and select “Microsoft IKEv2 VPN Server”
8- Tap to open the drop-down menu labeled “Authentication Type” and select “EAP-MSCHAPv2”
9- Tap to open the drop-down menu labeled “Authentication ID Type” and select “Fully Qualified Domain Name”
10- In the field labeled “Authentication ID” enter your VPN username
11- In the field labeled “MSCHAPv2 Password” enter your VPN password
12- Tap to open the drop-down menu labeled “Gateway Auth Type” and select “PKI”
13- Tap to open the drop-down menu labeled “Gateway Auth ID Type” and select “Identity Certificate Disabled”
14- Tap to open the drop-down menu labeled “Gateway CA Certificate” and select “All CA Certificates”
15- In the “Advanced” section, tap to switch on the button labeled “Automatically determine IP”
16- Tap to switch on the button labeled “Automatically determine DNS”
17- At the bottom of the page tap on the “Save” icon
18- Back in the “VPN” section, tap on the name of the profile you just created to establish the VPN connection. Once the connection is successfully established, the color of the profile name will change to green.
If the color of the profile changes to green, this means that all your settings are correct and that you have successfully manually configured a VPN’s IKEv2 connection on your Blackberry 10 device.
