Howto/Setup Bridged OpenVPN server on Ubuntu 10.04

The desired setup requirements

I want users to be able to access my network remotely as if they were locally. Also, I want client side configuration steps kept to a minimum. Specifically, I want clients to use the "alternative OpenVPN authentication method". Also, I want clients to be able to see all machines on the server's side (this last bit was what cost me a LOT of time to figure out). Last but not least, I do NOT want all traffic being forwarded through the VPN.

My setup

• The following was tested on OpenVPN 2.1 but may work for other version
• I have a standard router that acts as my gateway, located at 192.168.8.1
• My OpenVPN server has one NIC on eth1 and its ip address is 192.168.8.141
• My router is setup to assign ip addresses upon requests via dhcp but my servers have static ips.

The Steps

Step 1: Install a virtual bridged adapter

https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/network-configuration.html#bridging

Step 2: Install