Openvpn

Guides

• OpenVPN on debian.org
• How To Set Up an OpenVPN Server on Debian 8 on digitalocean.com

Troubleshooting

Test server - client connectivity

On the server, run

openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/server.conf --verb 6

On the client, run

openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/client.conf --verb 6

We should see [1]

...
Wed Mar  7 18:05:30 2012 Peer Connection Initiated with [AF_INET]SERVER_IP:PORT
Wed Mar  7 18:05:30 2012 Initialization Sequence Completed
...

Server not running (systemd)

After configuring the server (file /etc/openvpn/server.conf, the server does not start:

service openvpn start           # or systemctl start openvpn
service openvpn status          # show active (exited)
ps faux | grep openvpn          # no service running
service openvpn stop

We have to tell systemd to create new generators [2]:

systemctl daemon-reload
service openvpn start
ps faux | grep openvpn          # ok!

More info on openvpn in systemd. For instance, to start a specific configuration:

systemctl enable openvpn@sample.service
# creates a symlink in /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/openvpn@sample.service 
# pointing to /lib/systemd/system/openvpn@.service