OpenVPN over Network-Manager very instable, often failes to connect

[Nils Hasenbanck]

Binary package hint: network-manager-openvpn

When I want to establish a OpenVPN connection over the network-manager, the connection will fail to connect 80% of the times.

The openvpn client on the console works fine without any problems.

Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <info> Starting VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn'...
Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <info> VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn' started (org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn), PID 3849
Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <info> VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn' just appeared, activating connections
Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <info> VPN plugin state changed: 3
Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <info> VPN connection 'Nagisa.vpn' (Connect) reply received.
Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <WARN> nm_vpn_connection_connect_cb(): VPN connection 'Nagisa.vpn' failed to connect: 'No VPN secrets!'.
Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <WARN> connection_state_changed(): Could not process the request because no VPN connection was active.
Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <info> (eth0): writing resolv.conf to /sbin/resolvconf
Oct 5 08:39:39 taiga NetworkManager: <info> Policy set 'Auto eth0' (eth0) as default for routing and DNS.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Oct 5 08:45:14 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: network-manager-openvpn 0.8~a~git.20090831t215704.5dd87bd-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-11.38-generic
SourcePackage: network-manager-openvpn
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-11-generic x86_64

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

should be fixed in latest packages in karmic. plesae upgrade, restart system and try again. reopen bug if its still a problem.

[Jonathan Ernst (jonathan.ernst)]

It is still a problem, sometimes it works, then it fails 10 or more times with 'No VPN secrets!' in daemon.log, then it works again...

$ dpkg -l network-manager-openvpn
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Nom Version Description
+++-===========================-===========================-======================================================================
iU network-manager-openvpn 0.8~a~git.20091008t123607.7 network management framework (OpenVPN plugin)

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

i assume all your other packages are iup to date too? e.g. network-manager network-manager-gnome ...

[Matthias Niess (mniess)]

In can confirm this doesn't work in karmic with the exact same settings I used in jaunty (where it worked). I also get "no VPN secrets" when connecting to an OpenVPN. cmdline client works fine.

If I use a connection with certificates and password, it works. If my certificates are not password-protected, it doesn't.

network-manager-openvpn: 0.8~a~git.20091008t123607.7c184a9-0ubuntu1
/var/log/syslog
<info> Starting VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn'...
<info> VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn' started (org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn), PID 2456
<info> VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn' just appeared, activating connections
<info> VPN plugin state changed: 1
<info> VPN plugin state changed: 3
<info> VPN connection 'MyVPN' (Connect) reply received.
<WARN> nm_vpn_connection_connect_cb(): VPN connection 'MyVPN' failed to connect: 'No VPN secrets!'.
<WARN> connection_state_changed(): Could not process the request because no VPN connection was active.
<info> Policy set 'Auto MyWIFI' (wlan0) as default for routing and DNS.
<debug> [1256208847.001481] ensure_killed(): waiting for vpn service pid 2456 to exit
<debug> [1256208847.001597] ensure_killed(): vpn service pid 2456 cleaned up

[Luca Saba (lucasaba)]

I've got just the same error. I'm not sure if it is part of the problem but I've got another symptom. After reading this bug I wanted to export the openvpn configuration from NetworkManager. But a window pops up saying: "VPN connection can not be exported. Error: Unknown error" (I'm translating from Italian and I'm not sure the message in English would be this).

[Luca Saba (lucasaba)]

My mistake. It is not a symptom, it is another bug (bug #264144 )

[Jan-Philipp Litza (jplitza)]

I can confirm that setting a passphrase for the private key seems to work. For those who don't know how to do that:
   openssl rsa -des3 -in oldkey.key -out newkey.pem
Anyway, it's a regression from Jaunty...

[Mark Foster (fostermarkd)]

Kudos for that last suggestion from Jan-Phillip Litza, it fix the issue for me.

[Marc Poulhiès (marc-poulhies)]

This workaround also fixes my problem.