Why is my OpenVPN Client not connecting to the server? Amazon EC2 Windows

Question

I have been trying to set up OpenVPN on an Amazon EC2 instance running Windows 2008 SQL Server. After following several tutorials, I have been able to get the server running. Here is my server conf file:

## server.ovpn ##

port 1194

proto udp

dev tun

ca xxxx.crt

cert xxxx.crt

key xxxx.key

dh dh2048.pem

server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0

ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt

keepalive 10 120

comp-lzo

max-clients 100

persist-key

persist-tun

status openvpn-status.log

verb 3

But when setting up the client side, the connection times out giving the following error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity)

I have tried a TCP connection instead to no avail, and I opened the 1194 port on the EC2 firewall. Both internally and on the security settings of the EC2 instance.

The OpenVPN HOWTO says to make sure I am are using a correct port forward rule on the server's gateway firewall. But I am not sure what that means exactly.

Thanks in advance. I will post my client conf file as well just in case.

client

dev tun

proto udp

remote "Amazon instance Elastic IP" 1194

resolv-retry infinite

nobind

persist-key

persist-tun

ca xxxx.crt

cert xxxx.crt

key xxxx.key

ns-cert-type server

comp-lzo

verb 3

Solution

You can ignore the thing about port forwarding. That's in a situation where you have the OpenVPN server behind some sort of router. In that case, you'll have to forward 1194/udp traffic to the server.

Can you make sure the clocks on both machines are in sync?

The other thing would be to double check the EC2 Security Groups to make sure you're allowing incoming 1194/udp traffic.

Comments

[npiani]

Thank you cjc, The clocks were not in sync and that seemed to be the issue.