OpenVPN AutoStart Ubuntu 18.04

networking network-manager openvpn autostart

16,319

Solution 1

If you save your configuration as a MY_CONNECTION.conf file in your /etc/openvpn directory, you can do the following:

systemctl enable openvpn@MY_CONNECTION
systemctl start openvpn@MY_CONNECTION

where MY_CONNECTION is the same from MY_CONNECTION.conf.

So if you have multiple connections, you would have multiple systemctl calls.

systemctl enable openvpn@MY_CONNECTION1
systemctl start openvpn@MY_CONNECTION1
systemctl enable openvpn@MY_CONNECTION2
systemctl start openvpn@MY_CONNECTION2

etc.

Solution 2

Below you find the steps I did to configure my Private Internet Access (PIA) OpenVPN tunnel. I use Switzerland.ovpn to refer to OpenVPN configuration. Please substitute this with the filename appropriate for your configuration.

I used Ubuntu 18.04, but it should work on any Linux distro using systemd. I only don't know if the network-manager will override this or not.

Dependencies

sudo apt update
sudo apt install openvpn

OpenVPN Configuration

sudo mkdir /etc/openvpn/PIA (change PIA to the name of your choice)

Download your OpenVPN config files, for example:

sudo wget https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/openvpn/openvpn.zip https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/openvpn/openvpn-strong.zip

(Extract and) copy the config file into the newly creted folder (here, /etc/openvpn/PIA)
cd /etc/openvpn/PIA

Skip steps 7 to 10 if you do not use a password

(optional) sudo touch piapass.txt
(optional) sudo chmod 700 piapass.txt
(optional) Type sudo nano piapass.txt and put the following content (changing username and password to the values appropriate for your configuration)
```
username
password
```
(optional) Type sudo nano Switzerland.ovpn and change the auth-user-pass line to auth-user-pass /etc/openvpn/PIA/piapass.txt
Test the connection sudo openvpn Switzerland.ovpn

Systemd Startup Service Setup

Change piavpn.service for whatever name you would like your startup OpenVPN connection service to have.

cd /etc/systemd/system/
sudo touch piavpn.service
sudo chmod 644 piavpn.service

Type sudo nano piavpn.service and put the following content (make sure to adapt the line starting with ExecStart to match your configuration):

[Unit]
Description=Private Internet Access VPN (Swiss)
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=idle
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/PIA/Switzerland.ovpn

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable piavpn.service
sudo reboot

After the reboot your OpenVPN connection should be set up automatically on boot.

Solution 3

Indeed @xm88, you want to automatically provide credentials at boot time when openvpn service is started up without user interaction or typing

In your oven config file (.conf on raspbian, but whichever extension is needed in your case)

    client
...
    auth-user-pass $yourCredentialsFile
    [some more config]
    <ca>
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    etc etc

And right next to your config file, a plain text file named $yourCredentialsFile which will contain:

username
password

I must advise this is not best practice in terms of security, because credentials are plain and available to any user who has access to your openvpn config dir /etc/openvpn, but this will allow openvpn service to auto login when started up at boot time.

16,319

xm88

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

xm88 over 1 year

I am trying to set OpenVPN to autostart on boot. With 18.04 Mate I have tried my usual put opvpn config into /etc/openvpn and then edit /etc/default/openvpn to connect all. This does not work, although it worked on 16.04.

I have looked into using systemd but I can't get it to work.

I have tried using network manager to connect on log in, as a compromise, this failed due to ethernet not auto connecting if a VPN is set to always be used.

So, in summary, what I want is:

My openvpn to automatically connect when I boot up.

Thanks for all and any help!

xm
xm88 almost 6 years

Hi Matt. Thank you for your answer. systemctl enable openvpn@MY_CONNECTION systemctl start openvpn@MY_CONNECTION This works if I do it manually. It does not work on boot. My VPN does not automatically connect, for some reason.
xm88 almost 6 years

I think, perhaps, the issue is, when this command is called it request a password via a GUI dialogue box.
vanadium over 5 years

I guess that the specific question is: how to have it auto start at boot time.
Rodney almost 5 years

So the line in /etc/default/openvpn that reads "WARNING: If you're running systemd the rest of the options in this file are ignored." should say "... all of this file is ignored" as clearly AUTOSTART is ignored if favour of this method.