OpenVPN Support Forum

janjust wrote: this means that the server thinks that the name of the clietn is hv.example.local - rename the CCD file to 'hv.example.local' and reconnect. Now try the pings 172.31.0.8 <-> 192.168.0.2 again.

As it turns out, this wasn't quite the problem, but it pointed in the right direction: the name discrepancy was me editing log files inconsistently; but the issue was indeed the ccd dir: somehow it was mode 700 so that the OpenVPN server couldn't read it after dropping privileges. I chmoded it to 755, and now everything works.

Thanks so much for your help.

BTW, is there any way to donate money to the OpenVPN project ?

I'm glad to hear things are now working.
AFAIK there currently is no way of donating money to the OpenVPN project (there used to be one). You can make ME happy , of course, by buying my book