OpenVPN as a service in Windows 8.1

Issam2204

Dear all,

I'm using OpenVPN (x64) 2.3.7 on Windows 8.1 x64 Enterprise edition.

What I need is to start OpenVPN on boot. After reading the HowTo, I set the provided OpenVPN service on "Automatic" startup.

However I have some issues: sometimes it works and in other cases it doesn't. It looks totally random. To check whether it works or not I simply check if my IP address changed.

What I've tried so far + some remarks:

1) I set OpenVPN service on "Automatic (delay)", but this is not an option as it take up to 2 minutes to actually start. I need it to be on immediately.

2) I set the "openvpnserv.exe" binary to start as "Administrator". This is the binary called by the service to start OpenVPN at boot.

3) Antivirus or firewall has nothing to do here as I don't have them/are disabled.

I use OpenVPN also on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS x64 and in that case everything works good.

Any help would be extremely appreciate it!

Thanks!

Traffic

Issam2204 wrote set the provided OpenVPN service on "Automatic" startup.

OpenVPN is considering using this service manager:
http://www.nssm.cc/

You could try it yourself to see if it can provide what you need ... Let us know.

Issam2204

Hi Traffic! Thank you for your answer!

This is what I did:

1) Uninstalled the previous OpenVPNService with this command "SC DELETE OpenVPNService"

2) Typed and run "nssm install OpenVPNService"

3) Edited only the first tab (the others I left them as default):

4) Rebooted the PC

Now the service is showed as Paused. Certainly something is missing. For example, the "dependencies" tab is empty (and I don't think it's supposed to be).

Any help is welcome!

Thank you!

Issam2204

I would have edited the former post but I couldn't.

Anyways, I've been able to set NSSM and I must say that now it works great!

I've followed this small tutorial: https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/WhyMyOpenVPNTunnelDoesNot

Only one last question: is it normal that I find myself with two services? One is the OpenVPNService and the other is the "file.ovpn". The first one is paused, while the later is running.

Thank you again!

CliplessWingtips

Bump.

I just made a thread similar to this one a couple minutes ago. There are most likely no new updates on this potential feature?

~Clipless

Issam2204

Just wanted to answer my own question saying that it is completely normal to have 2 processes.

Thank you again, NSSM works perfectly.

Traffic

Thanks for letting us know your experience 8-)