OpenVPN Support Forum

So, over the years I've installed OpenVPN to only have it fail at random times... I find it to be not very stable and buggy!

Tonight ...once again I am working on a "broken OpenVPN install on a pfsense box... Latest version of pfsense installed, installed openVPN client creator, created access through user accounts... This setup has been working fine all week until this evening... out of the blue... with no changes to anything... it fails with an Unknow Reason!

Here is the log:

<<snip>>

2022-04-26 20:11:04 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]x.x.x.x:1194
2022-04-26 20:11:04 Attempting to establish TCP connection with [AF_INET]x.x.x.x:1194 [nonblock]
2022-04-26 20:13:05 TCP: connect to [AF_INET]x.x.x.x:1194 failed: Unknown error
2022-04-26 20:13:05 SIGUSR1[connection failed(soft),init_instance] received, process restarting
2022-04-26 20:13:10 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]x.x.x.x:1194
2022-04-26 20:13:10 Attempting to establish TCP connection with [AF_INET]x.x.x.x:1194 [nonblock]
2022-04-26 20:15:10 TCP: connect to [AF_INET]x.x.x.x:1194 failed: Unknown error
2022-04-26 20:15:10 SIGUSR1[connection failed(soft),init_instance] received, process restarting
2022-04-26 20:15:16 TCP/UDP: Preserving recently used remote address: [AF_INET]x.x.x.x:1194
2022-04-26 20:15:16 Attempting to establish TCP connection with [AF_INET]x.x.x.x:1194 [nonblock]

<<end snip>

So, ... no changes on my end... router config has stayed the same... client systems have had no hardware or software installed... now, no one can connect...

Any ideas / thoughts / experiences??

Thank you
Kell

You'll probably have more luck on Netgate forum.
Please see,
viewtopic.php?t=22603#p68963

Hmmm .. so, are you saying that since your software does not run well on pfsense systems... it is now their problem?
According to your website here: https://openvpn.net/faq/openvpn-compatibility

Your developers state that it will run on FreeBSD ... well, it runs for a little while anyways.. but, then will crash.

Also, the client creator program developed by your staff is buggy as well. I had to make my own modifications to get it to insert the correct ddns coding for some of my clients that do not have a static IP. But, that is for another forum / topic so I won't go into details.

Can you please explain the "Unknown Error" ? Difficult to troubleshoot if we cannot have a little more details - or, is that another Netgate produced error message?

Let me know... I will be here working on your software.
Kell

Your service fee has been refunded and your contract has been cancelled.

Hi Kell,

Looks like something is interfering with your connection attempt to TCP/1194. Crappy firewall or crappy OS maybe? But it indeed for sure looks like it is something outside of our software. Fix that and we can talk. It's easy to just come in and kick the software but there are often very many other factors involved. Do some basic network troubleshooting before you try to blame. And you'll probably get better results without the negative attitude.

BTW TCP for openvpn is a bad idea. We did not tell you to use TCP. We specifically inform people to use UDP. Whoever told you to set it up that way may have a poor understanding of openvpn, so please don't listen to them. If you're interested to learn look into the TCP Meltdown phenomenon.

You don't seem to understand the difference between retries and crashes. You did not show any logs of a crash. The openvpn software retries when confronted with errors.

"Our staff" created very nice client creation software suites for OpenVPN Cloud and Access Server. But you are not using either. Please try to learn something about what you are looking at before you post comments on Internet forums with immediate assumptions.

No, we certainly cannot explain your "Unknown Error". We don't even have any information about where this client is running. Unfortunately we cannot read minds so we need relevant information to provide a diagnosis. Maybe try with --verb 4 on the client? Maybe also try a tcpdump(8) to see if your packets are even getting out? If they are, maybe check and share your logs on your pfsense router?

Sorry Kell but we can't help you unless you provide relevant information and stop immediately assuming our program is at fault. Keep in mind that OpenVPN software is provided as-is as an open source project and it is implemented by the manufacturer of the device or software you're using that it comes embedded into. We do not control how they implement it. And the implementation may be at fault.

regards, rob0
[post edited to remove some bad words]