OpenVPN on AWS EC2 gives Error Code 1232 (Transmit Failed)

sficca

I am using OpenVPN for a VPN client in an Amazon's EC2 machine instance of Windows Server 2008 (32bit). It successfully connects, briefly, and I get

Reply from 10.9.0.1: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.9.0.1: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.9.0.1: bytes=32 time=40ms TTL=64
Reply from 10.9.0.1: bytes=32 time=54ms TTL=64
PING: transmit failed, error code 1232
PING: transmit failed, error code 1232
PING: transmit failed, error code 1232

It was suggested that I DISABLE/ENABLE the TAP adapter associated with the connection. But when I do that it causes the instance to freeze - I am dropped and cannot connect until after I reboot the instance. No seemingly relevant information is left in any event log (System, Application, or OpenVPN's log), or bugcheck file.

Does anybody know a better way to get OpenVPN to work as a client in EC2? (Specifically, OpenVPN and EC2.)

For any help that may be offered, Thank you. -John

(Below are some details, and key settings I'm using in client.ovpn:)
OpenVPN 2.2.0 Win32-MSVC++ [SSL] [LZO2] built on Apr 26 2011
Originally developed by James Yonan [Thanks!]
Copyright (C) 2002-2010 OpenVPN Technologies, Inc. <sales@openvpn.net>
-TAP-Win32 Provider V9 ((4/19/2010)) ((Ver 9.0.0.8))

client.ovpn:
dev tun
proto udp
client
nobind
persist-key
persist-tun

janjust

try adding

route-method exe
route-delay 5 10

to the config file; there are known problems when running OpenVPN on Win2008 on EC2 ; something to do with the domain controller not coming up properly when the EC2 image does not start. Thus far I have not seen anybody who got that working properly.

sficca

No success - With those setting, it fails the same way as before.

Thank you though for your suggestion. I'm eager to try all other's you might offer. I have seen this same problem in Windows Server 2003 in EC2 as well (and could not solve it).

Getting OpenVPN in EC2 would help a lot. Ipsec won't traverse Amazon's security filters, so the secure VPN built into Windows is broke. Amazon's Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) let's you VPN securely, but you have to use expensive and overly complex, Cisco routers from the ground to be compatible with it.

jvillalta

I have been trying to accomplish the same thing. Similar to what http://www.cohesiveft.com/vpncubed/ provides.

I found a older 2.x version that had a few issues. So far it has worked with the latest release of 2.2 RC1.

sficca

In my post, I state "Does anybody know a better way to get OpenVPN to work as a client in EC2? (Specifically, OpenVPN and EC2.)".

jvillalta, are you really trying to accomplish the same thing? Is "VPN-Cubed® the first commercial solution that" is specifically OpenVPN working in EC2?

jvillalta

I have some additional information to follow up.

This is what I am doing. I have an Astaro firewall at our main datacenter and I am extending our server to the Amazon EC2 service. The Astaro firewall has SSL vpn functionality compatible with OpenVPN. I am using the Astaro as a SSL VPN server and I am installing the OpenVPN client on the servers in EC2. I have the OpenVPN client setup to auto authenticate the Astaro firewall automatically on boot up. This works fine on Windows 2008 R2 server but the Windows 2008 servers would connect but traffic would sporadically drop packets.

I would get Error Code 1232(Transmit Failed)

I noticed that the TAP interface was loosing the IP address. I tried many suggestions for vista but no luck.

Then I found one post to that talked about turning on the DhcpConnForceBroadcastFlag flag on the interface registry key.
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\TCPIP\Parameters\Interfaces\GUID

Adding this Dword did not solve it but I saw another key:
EnableDeadGWDetect

And I set it to 0

So far I have rebooted several times and it has not dropped a packet yet.

jason404

@jvillalta

Are you saying that it is possible to use OpenVPN on Windows Server 2008 R2 on Amazon EC2? Is it definitely working for you? I have been looking everywhere on the web, and what you say here is the only positive sounding thing I have read.

I have the EC2 Windows Server 2008 R2 Core server running as the OpenVPN server (not client) and I have not tried the other way around, as al I have been reading is that it doesn't work that way around either.

The OpenVPN client is on a Tomato router. So you are saying that if I use Astaro firewall as the server and run OpenVPN as a client on the Windows server on EC2, it will work? :shock: Why would Astaro work?

I'm very keen on getting this working.

Mimiko

As stated in this topic https://forums.openvpn.net/topic9739.html by NF, he got the OpenVPN working on x64 images. Try it.