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Accepted
Christian David
Asked: 2016-03-18 02:01:10 +0800 CST

Systemd fails to start openvpn in lxd managed 16.04 container

  • 772

openvpn starts fine from the command line using the exact ExecStart= call from the systemd unit file:

/usr/sbin/openvpn --daemon ovpn-server --status /run/openvpn/server.status 10 --cd /etc/openvpn --script-security 2 --config /etc/openvpn/server.conf /run/openvpn/server.pid

ps ax confirms that the process is there:

1634 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/openvpn --daemon ovpn-server --status /run/openvpn/server.status 10 --cd /etc/openvpn --script-security 2 --config /etc/openvpn/server.conf --writepid /run/openvpn/

But systemctl start openvpn@server is not successful:

● [email protected] - OpenVPN connection to server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/[email protected]; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2016-03-17 09:54:52 UTC; 4s ago
     Docs: man:openvpn(8)
           https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/Openvpn23ManPage
           https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/HOWTO
  Process: 1679 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/openvpn --daemon ovpn-server --status /run/openvpn/server.status 10 --cd /etc/openvpn --script-security 2 --config /etc/openvpn/server.conf --writepid /run/openvpn/s
 Main PID: 819 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn ovpn-server[1679]:   push_ifconfig_ipv6_remote = ::
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn ovpn-server[1679]:   enable_c2c = DISABLED
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn ovpn-server[1679]:   duplicate_cn = DISABLED
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn ovpn-server[1679]:   cf_max = 0
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn ovpn-server[1679]:   cf_per = 0
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn ovpn-server[1679]:   max_clients = 1024
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn systemd[1]: [email protected]: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn systemd[1]: Failed to start OpenVPN connection to server.
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn systemd[1]: [email protected]: Unit entered failed state.
Mar 17 09:54:52 vpn systemd[1]: [email protected]: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

I interpret journalctl | grep ovpn-server | tail -n 100 that it failed to fork:

Mar 17 09:57:44 vpn ovpn-server[1693]: OpenVPN 2.3.10 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [EPOLL] [PKCS11] [MH] [IPv6] built on Feb  2 2016
Mar 17 09:57:44 vpn ovpn-server[1693]: library versions: OpenSSL 1.0.2g  1 Mar 2016, LZO 2.08
Mar 17 09:57:44 vpn ovpn-server[1693]: daemon() failed or unsupported: Resource temporarily unavailable (errno=11)
Mar 17 09:57:44 vpn ovpn-server[1693]: Exiting due to fatal error
openvpn

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I've been looking for a fix for this also. What I have found to work is to comment out the LimitNPROC line in /lib/systemd/system/[email protected].

    Don't forget to run systemctl daemon-reload after that.

    • 55

  2. It's better to avoid modyfying systemd units originating from system packages. Just use systemd override drop-in:

    systemctl edit openvpn@

    Unit name for openvpn server might be different, eg. for package version 2.4.5-xenial0 it will be

    systemctl edit openvpn-server@

    Then put into editor:

    [Service]
LimitNPROC=infinity

    It should create /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]/override.conf file (or similar for corresponding unit name). To activate it you may want to reload systemd with

    systemctl daemon-reload

    If starting the unit is successful with LimitNPROC=infinity then go back and change the limit to a higher value than the default of 10. The limit is important to prevent the service from consuming all available pids which can cause a denial of service.

    Credits:
    override: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/398541/218321
    "unlimited limit": https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/345596/218321

    • 19

  3. I also had to add those bellow their respective tun brother

    DeviceAllow=/dev/net/tap rw
DeviceAllow=/dev/net/tap1 rw

    to run it on L2 level.

    • 1