NM reports "VPN service 'openvpn' disappeared"

[Wolf Rogner]

NetworkManager[920]: <info> VPN service 'openvpn' disappeared

a similar bug has been reported to be fixed. Unfortunately not.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: network-manager 0.9.4.0-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-24.37-generic 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-24-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
CRDA: Error: command ['iw', 'reg', 'get'] failed with exit code 1: nl80211 not found.
Date: Fri May 11 09:33:10 2012
IfupdownConfig:
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release amd64+mac (20111012)
IpRoute:
 default via 10.1.0.254 dev eth1 proto static
 10.0.0.0/8 dev eth1 proto kernel scope link src 10.1.0.123 metric 2
 169.254.0.0/16 dev eth1 scope link metric 1000
 172.16.164.0/24 dev vmnet8 proto kernel scope link src 172.16.164.1
 192.168.179.0/24 dev vmnet1 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.179.1
NetworkManager.state:
 [main]
 NetworkingEnabled=true
 WirelessEnabled=true
 WWANEnabled=true
 WimaxEnabled=true
SourcePackage: network-manager
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-04-29 (11 days ago)
nmcli-dev:
 DEVICE TYPE STATE DBUS-PATH
 eth1 802-11-wireless connected /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/1
 eth0 802-3-ethernet unavailable /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/0
nmcli-nm:
 RUNNING VERSION STATE NET-ENABLED WIFI-HARDWARE WIFI WWAN-HARDWARE WWAN
 running 0.9.4.0 connected enabled enabled enabled enabled disabled

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[vMeson (rwmacleod)]

FYI, you can connect manually using "sudo vpnc" as described http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-connect-to-a-cisco-vpn-with-vpnc/
That works for me and if you have forgotten your connection info the Configure VPN panel is helpful.

[vMeson (rwmacleod)]

I'm seeing this on Ubuntu-14.04, btw. I don't see a more recent bug report so I'll continue to use this one unless asked to do otherwise.

[Andrew Molder (andrew-molder)]

I am having a similar problem on Ubuntu-14.04. However, at one point, I was able to connect to my vpn with 14.04.

[Jonathan MIlls (jonmills-b)]

I'm also seeing this in 14.04 LTS -- even after installing the fixes for all the other problems with nm-applet

[Jan Krupa (jan-g)]

Sometimes when I boot my laptop and I try to connect to my openvpn gateway via the network manager, nothing happens after clicking my VPN connection from the list in the /var/log/syslog I can see:

Jun 6 09:13:37 jan-laptop NetworkManager[969]: <info> Starting VPN service 'openvpn'...
Jun 6 09:13:37 jan-laptop NetworkManager[969]: <info> VPN service 'openvpn' started (org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn), PID 3502
Jun 6 09:13:37 jan-laptop NetworkManager[969]: <info> VPN service 'openvpn' appeared; activating connections
Jun 6 09:13:37 jan-laptop NetworkManager[969]: <error> [1402038817.984254] [nm-vpn-connection.c:1374] get_secrets_cb(): Failed to request VPN secrets #2: (6) No agents were available for this request.
Jun 6 09:13:37 jan-laptop NetworkManager[969]: <info> Policy set 'My wifi network' (wlan0) as default for IPv4 routing and DNS.
Jun 6 09:13:43 jan-laptop NetworkManager[969]: <info> VPN service 'openvpn' disappeared

Sometimes it works fine.

[Wolfgang Richter (wolfgang-richter)]

Also seeing this same issue with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a Dell XPS 13 Developer's Edition.

[LinuXperia (linuxperia)]

This is really a problematic Bug!
I could isolate the Problem a little more !

The Error Line VPN service 'openvpn' disappeared
Can be found in:
network-manager-0.9.10.0/src/vpn-manager/nm-vpn-service.c

The Problematic Code Part where it breaks the OpenVPN Service
if (old_owner_good && !new_owner_good) {
  /* service went away */
  priv->service_running = FALSE;
  nm_log_info (LOGD_VPN, "VPN service '%s' disappeared", priv->name);
  nm_vpn_service_stop_connections (service, FALSE, NM_VPN_CONNECTION_STATE_REASON_SERVICE_STOPPED);
 }

can be found in the function _name_owner_changed

Maybe somebody know how to fix this now ?

static void
_name_owner_changed (NMDBusManager *mgr,
                     const char *name,
                     const char *old,
                     const char *new,
                     gpointer user_data)
{
 NMVPNService *service = NM_VPN_SERVICE (user_data);
 NMVPNServicePrivate *priv = NM_VPN_SERVICE_GET_PRIVATE (service);
 gboolean old_owner_good, new_owner_good, success;

 if (strcmp (name, priv->dbus_service))
  return;

 /* Service changed, no need to wait for the timeout any longer */
 if (priv->start_timeout) {
  g_source_remove (priv->start_timeout);
  priv->start_timeout = 0;
 }

 old_owner_good = (old && old[0]);
 new_owner_good = (new && new[0]);

 if (!old_owner_good && new_owner_good) {
  /* service appeared */
  priv->service_running = TRUE;
  nm_log_info (LOGD_VPN, "VPN service '%s' appeared; activating connections", priv->name);
  /* Expect success because the VPN service has already appeared */
  success = start_active_vpn (service, NULL);
  g_warn_if_fail (success);
 } else if (old_owner_good && !new_owner_good) {
  /* service went away */
  priv->service_running = FALSE;
  nm_log_info (LOGD_VPN, "VPN service '%s' disappeared", priv->name);
  nm_vpn_service_stop_connections (service, FALSE, NM_VPN_CONNECTION_STATE_REASON_SERVICE_STOPPED);
 }
}

P.S. I had nm-applet Crashing allways when this Log Lines are showed

Oct 18 07:51:13 dbus[899]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.hostname1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.hostname1.service'
Oct 18 07:51:13 systemd[1]: Starting Hostname Service...
Oct 18 07:51:13 dbus[899]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.hostname1'
Oct 18 07:51:13 systemd[1]: Started Hostname Service.
Oct 18 07:51:16 gnome-session[2345]: Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: »net usershare« gab den Fehler 255 zurück: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
Oct 18 07:51:16 gnome-session[2345]: Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

There is something strange with usermanagement it looks like in ubuntu when using OpenVPN !!!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Nish Aravamudan (nacc)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

There isn't really enough information here to know if there is a bug in openvpn itself, or in NetworManager. So I am marking this bug Incomplete for now for openvpn.

If you can provide exact steps so that a developer can reproduce the original problem using only openvpn, then please add them to this bug and change the status back to New.