Tunnelblick is made available under the GNU General Public License, version 2. It can be freely distributed within the restrictions of that license.
If you are distributing Tunnelblick to multiple clients or servers, you might want to consider using a "Deployed" version of Tunnelblick:
- A "Deployed" version contains, within the Tunnelblick application itself, all of the configurations, certificates, keys, and scripts needed for the connection(s) that you wish to make available.
- A "Deployed" version can also contain "forced" preferences, which the user is not allowed to override, which can avoid problems caused by users inadvertently changing critical configuration parameters.
- Any user of the computer who can access a "Deployed" version of Tunnelblick can connect using the configuration(s). For example, if Tunnelblick.app is stored in /Applications, everyone who uses the computer will be able to connect.
- A minimal "Deployed" version can be created very easily on any platform. See How To Make a "Deployed" Version of Tunnelblick.
- The downside of Deployed configurations is that it is difficult to use a digitally signed version so that the user can store usernames, passwords, and passphrases in the Keychain. See Digital Signatures.
If you would prefer to distribute configurations separately from the Tunnelblick application, you should consider using Tunnelblick VPN Configurations. They avoid the problems with digital signatures that Deployed configurations have.
- A Tunnelblick VPN Configuration is an easily constructed Mac OS X package which contains a configuration file and certificates, keys, and scripts to support the configuration.
- A Tunnelblick VPN Configuration may be private to each individual user (and need to be installed separately for each user), or it may be shared by all users of the computer.
- A Tunnelblick VPN Configuration can optionally contain identification and version information which Tunnelblick will use when a user installs or reinstalls a configuration.
- A Tunnelblick VPN Configuration can also contain default preferences which are installed when the configuration is first used, but which the user can subsequently override.
- Tunnelblick VPN Configurations which are contained on the disk image used to distribute the application may be automatically installed when the application itself is installed.