OpenVPN client does not recognize WLAN connections

[firebird]

Binary package hint: openvpn

Hi folks!
This seems to be a common sight according to several threads i found on google, and btw. since several Ubuntu versions:
OpenVPN client connects perfectly as long as there is a cable attached to the computer.
If you try to use the WLAN connection that doesn't work.
According to OpenVPN's documentation the operation system should take care of the selection of connections,
and basically this works for almost every application, like for example Firefox.
Unfortunately it doesn't for OpenVPN.
Please fix this as soon as you can as it is really crucial for road warriors...
Thanks!

[TJ (tj)]

I've been running openvpn client over wireless LAN since 6.10 with no issues. You'll need to give precise details of the configuration of the network and openvpn.

[Andy Rogers (andy-rogers)]

Please provide details of your actual system setup, your configuration files etc.
This could be just a misconfiguration.

[firebird (sysadmin-dk-compmath-deactivatedaccount)]

sure, whatever you need!
Intrepid's network setup is an out of the box setup, i didn't change anything there, exept that i configured a static ip instead of a dynamic one for the wired connection.

[firebird (sysadmin-dk-compmath-deactivatedaccount)]

uh, one thing i missed; i added the keyword "float" to the config right below the line with the "remote" keyword, as an error on first connection attempt tells me to do so.

[TJ (tj)]

What does /var/log/daemon.log report when the connection is being
attempted?

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

From my understanding you are using :
- NetworkManager to handle your network connection
- OpenVPN service to establish VPN at boot

This combination won't work : the network won't be available until you log into Gnome, so the VPN cannot be established at boot. If you are using that combination, I'd recommend fallback to using either Networkmanager + network-manager-openvpn, or define your network in /etc/network/interfaces (disabling NM) and use the OpenVPN service to establish the connection at boot time.

[TJ (tj)]

If the wireless interface is configured as 'system-wide' in NetworkManager the host interface will be up without a log-in and openvpn will establish the tunnel as soon as the route appears.

If NetworkManager establishes the wireless connection after GDM log-in the openvpn connection establishes itself as soon as the route appears.

I don't have any openvpn connections defined via NetworkManager. I have the openvpn service defined in /etc/openvpn/connection.conf. /etc/rc2.d/S16openvpn runs at boot-time.

[Thierry Carrez (ttx)]

True, openvpn should retry until the connection is open. So it /should/ work :)

[firebird (sysadmin-dk-compmath-deactivatedaccount)]

ok, i am starting to understand, what you meant by "more information on the configuration":
i have defined the LAN connection during installation of intrepid, and of course i can see it in network-manager as eth0.
checkbox "system setting" is enabled there.

the vpn is not configured in network-manager as i am using pkcs12 (ie. *.p12) certificates which are currently not supported by network-manager.
the vpn is not being established automatically during system startup, but i have installed openvpngui, which is a very simple to use taskbar applet that uses the config files in /etc/openvpn and that allows to select between several different configs.
this implies that all routes should practically be there, as i of course gnome needs to be running in order to use openvpngui.

btw. the wireless connection is also not being started automatically during system startup, but i connect manually through the network-manager taskbar applet.
the reason for this is that i run from one institute to another and all of those of course have differen networks...

please see the attachment for information on the daemon.log

[firebird (sysadmin-dk-compmath-deactivatedaccount)]

err yes, as far as i can see with tail -f on /var/log/daemon.log nothing is being inserted there if i start the vpn via openvpngui, so heres another log from the openvpn output window.
i believe these two lines to be the interesting ones:

Wed Mar 25 10:17:01 2009 TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity)
Wed Mar 25 10:17:01 2009 TLS Error: TLS handshake failed

[firebird (sysadmin-dk-compmath-deactivatedaccount)]

Hi Chuck!

As I can see somebody still cares about this so I wanted to let you know that this woks now!
I have no idea what has been changed but I tried it once more the other day and it works now, so from my point of wiev this thread can be closed.
Your's, firebug