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waspinator
Asked: 2012-12-17 18:43:47 +0800 CST

How to auto start openvpn (client) on Ubuntu CLI?

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I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 64bit. I have an *.ovpn file that works if I type:

sudo openvpn client.ovpn

Now I would like to start up openvpn when I boot the computer.

How can I do this?

command-line

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    1. Download the OpenVPNConfigFile.ovpn. Note that you can rename the file to anything you like.

    2. Move the ovpn file to /etc/openvpn

    3. cd /etc/openvpn folder and enter sudo nano yourserver.txt

      your_server_user_name
your_server_passowrd

      Save and Close

    4. sudo nano OpenVPNConfigFile.ovpn

      Find auth-user-pass and add yourserver.txt next to it so that it becomes

      auth-user-pass yourserver.txt

      This will allow you to skip entering your credentials everytime you start openvpn connection

    5. Rename OpenVPNConfigFile.ovpn to OpenVPNConfigFile.conf

      sudo mv OpenVPNConfigFile.ovpn OpenVPNConfigFile.conf

    6. sudo nano /etc/default/openvpn

      Uncomment AUTOSTART="all"

    7. sudo service openvpn start

      You should see a message saying that you are connected. The connection will be established every time you start your computer.

    • 29

  2. The openvpn package comes with an init script /etc/init.d/openvpn. This script automatically sets up connection for every .conf (mind the extension) file in /etc/openvpn.

    Found this based on information here: https://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/howto.html#startup

    If you install OpenVPN via an RPM or DEB package on Linux, the installer will set up an initscript. When executed, the initscript will scan for .conf configuration files in /etc/openvpn, and if found, will start up a separate OpenVPN daemon for each file.

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  3. It would be nice to have a un hacker way of doing it, but this will have to do for now.

    1. Create file myopenvpn in /etc/init.d/

      nano /etc/init.d/myopenvpn

    2. Insert into myopenvpn and save:

      # OpenVPN autostart on boot script

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [!2345]

respawn

exec /usr/sbin/openvpn --status /var/run/openvpn.client.status 10 --cd /etc/openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/client.conf --syslog openvpn

    SOURCE: How to auto start OpenVPN client in Debian 6 and Ubuntu 12.04

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  4. I got a bit stuck on this and ended up writing out all of the instructions for setting it up with systemd manually.

    This worked for me using Ubuntu 16.10 and openvpn 2.3.11

    Setting up your vpn to run from bash

    These examples use expressvpn but most would work the same way

    Download your vpn provider's ovpn config file e.g. my_express_vpn_amsterdam_2.ovpn

    move that to /etc/openvpn/ and rename it to end in .conf

    sudo mv ~/Downloads/my_express_vpn_amsterdam_2.ovpn /etc/openvpn/amsterdam-2.conf

    Your VPN provider will provide you with a username and password for connecting over openvpn. Save the userename and then password each on their own line

    sudo vim /etc/openvpn/express-vpn-crednetials.txt
# add these lines
YOUR_VPN_USERNAME
YOUR_VPN_PASSWORD
# save the file

    now edit /etc/openvpn/amsterdam-2.conf look for a line that says auth-user-pass and replace it with the path to your credential file

    auth-user-pass /etc/openvpn/express-vpn-crednetials.txt

    Test your config! Start openvpn like this

    sudo openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/amsterdam-2.conf

    openvpn should connect without asking for username or password

    Remove existing (broken) service config for openvpn

    sudo rm /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/openvpn.service

    Set up openvpn to run as a systemd service

    The config that came with openvpn was broken so I removed it and created a new one based on this answer

    Create systemd service for openvpn

    sudo vim /usr/lib/systemd/system/openvpn@service

    add this config:

    [Unit]
Description=OpenVPN Robust And Highly Flexible Tunneling Application On %I
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
PrivateTmp=true
Type=forking
PIDFile=/var/run/openvpn/%i.pid
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/openvpn --daemon --writepid /var/run/openvpn/%i.pid --cd /etc/openvpn/ --config %i.conf

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

    the %iis used as a wildcard so that this service can be used for multiple vpn configurations. Set it up for the amsterdam-2.conf file that we created earlier

    sudo systemctl start [email protected]

    the systemd service should now be running on the amsterdam vpn. check its status like so

    sudo systemctl status [email protected]

    you should see several lines of output ending in Initialization Sequence Completed and your vpn should be running.

    Hope this helps! related reading:

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