Package network-manager-openvpn is not available, but is referred to by another package

Question

I'm trying out Ubuntu's live cd and have booted in from a USB. I want to check if it will work with my VPN or not. I already have Network Manager installed, but when I go to Configure VPNs, I can only see PPTP as an option, while I need to add an OpenVPN type of VPN.

Following the instructions on my VPN's documentation I tried to install openvpn using this:

sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn

But I get the response:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package network-manager-openvpn is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'network-manager-openvpn' has no installation candidate

Any ideas what the issue is?

Solution

network-manager-openvpn is in universe, which isn't included on the live image by default. But you can still temporarily install it in the live environment. Assuming that you're using 12.10, add this line to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal universe

Then run sudo apt-get update, and try sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn again.

I'm not sure if you need to restart Network Manager after installing. If so, sudo restart network-manager should work.

Comments

[Flimm]

Which version of Ubuntu are you running? On Ubuntu 12.10 I have this package.

[VPNDude]

@Flimm I'm using 12.10 as well. But I'm on the USB and haven't yet installed Ubuntu. Could it be why its not working?

[Flimm]

Yes, possibly. You'll need to connect to the Internet, and run sudo apt-get update. You'll need the "universe" repository to be enabled, check in Software Sources.

[Flimm]

The GUI way of adding the "universe" repository is to open Software Sources and tick "Community maintained free and open source software (universe)"