Ubuntu
openvpn package

  1. Bug #1211110
  2. Comment #6

Comment 6 for bug 1211110

Revision history for this message
Paul F (boxjunk) wrote : Re: network manager openvpn dns push data not updating resolv.conf

I have the same problem on Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.

Not sure this is a bug, though, just a M$ Windows-only feature as it's a TCP/IP extended property. The man page for OpenVPN describes --dhcp-option as a Windows-specific option.

If the OpenVPN server pushes a DNS server address to the client with, eg

dhcp-option DNS 8.8.8.8

then on a Linux platform this option is not actioned by the client. Instead it is copied to a set of incrementally numbered local environment variables named

foreign_option_{n}

which are available to scripts run by the --up and --down OpenVPN options.

The /etc/openvpn/update-resolve-conf script provided with the OpenVPN package parses these environment variables and
calls resolvconf to effectively do the same job in a Linuxy way.

Comment #5 is invalid since the script uses resolvconf to update /etc/resolv.conf -- it is not edited directly.

This is not, therefore, an OpenVPN bug, excepting that the current OpenVPN solution requires a reduced security policy by allowing builtin executables and scripts to be called when, by design, this is normally prohibited by default.

It is a feature request for Network Manager, though.