OpenVPN Support Forum

I installed openVPN 2.5.1-3 on a debian 11 on summer 2022, it worked for several months without problems

yesterday it stopped working, I didn't update anything before it stopped and then I did
sudo apt update
and then
sudo apt upgrade

nothing changed

when I check the status of the server I got:

$ sudo systemctl status openvpn-server@server
● openvpn-server@server.service - OpenVPN service for server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/openvpn-server@.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2023-03-19 19:14:54 CET; 632ms ago
Docs: man:openvpn(8)
https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/w ... n24ManPage
https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/HOWTO
Process: 21238 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/openvpn --status /run/openvpn-server/status-server.log --status-version 2 --suppress-timestamps --config server.conf (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Main PID: 21238 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
CPU: 47ms

my /var/log/syslog shows:
...
Mar 19 19:12:51 debianTV kernel: [26634.489002] [UFW BLOCK] IN=enp1s0 OUT= MAC= SRC=fe80:0000:0000:0000:8639:beff:fe68:667a DST=ff12:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:8384 LEN=447 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=290638 PROTO=UDP SPT=60483 DPT=21027 LEN=407
Mar 19 19:12:51 debianTV kernel: [26634.489386] [UFW BLOCK] IN=tun0 OUT= MAC= SRC=fe80:0000:0000:00009f0d:76e2:cc22 DST=ff12:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:8384 LEN=447 TC=0 HOPLIMIT=1 FLOWLBL=120804 PROTO=UDP SPT=60483 DPT=21027 LEN=407
Mar 19 19:12:53 debianTV systemd[1]: openvpn-server@server.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 29.
Mar 19 19:12:53 debianTV systemd[1]: Stopped OpenVPN service for server.
Mar 19 19:12:54 debianTV systemd[1]: Starting OpenVPN service for server...
Mar 19 19:12:54 debianTV openvpn[21163]: Options error: In [CMD-LINE]:1: Error opening configuration file: server.conf
Mar 19 19:12:54 debianTV openvpn[21163]: Use --help for more information.
Mar 19 19:12:54 debianTV systemd[1]: openvpn-server@server.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Mar 19 19:12:54 debianTV systemd[1]: openvpn-server@server.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 19 19:12:54 debianTV systemd[1]: Failed to start OpenVPN service for server.
Mar 19 19:12:59 debianTV systemd[1]: openvpn-server@server.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 30.
Mar 19 19:12:59 debianTV systemd[1]: Stopped OpenVPN service for server.
Mar 19 19:12:59 debianTV systemd[1]: Starting OpenVPN service for server...
Mar 19 19:12:59 debianTV openvpn[21168]: Options error: In [CMD-LINE]:1: Error opening configuration file: server.conf
Mar 19 19:12:59 debianTV openvpn[21168]: Use --help for more information.
Mar 19 19:12:59 debianTV systemd[1]: openvpn-server@server.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Mar 19 19:12:59 debianTV systemd[1]: openvpn-server@server.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 19 19:12:59 debianTV systemd[1]: Failed to start OpenVPN service for server.

the server.conf is under the following:
/etc/openvpn$ ll
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 7 2022 client
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Aug 6 2022 easy-rsa
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 6 2022 server
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 793 Sep 4 2022 server.conf
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1468 Apr 28 2021 update-resolv-conf


my /etc/openvpn/server.conf is the following:
##########################################
$ cat server.conf

port 1194
proto udp
dev tun
ca /etc/openvpn/server/ca.crt
cert /etc/openvpn/server/server.crt
key /etc/openvpn/server/server.key
dh /etc/openvpn/server/dh.pem
server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0
push "redirect-gateway def1"
# push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.222.222"
# push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.220.220"
push "dhcp-option DNS 192.168.1.1"
#push "dhcp-option DNS 10.8.0.1"
push "dhcp-option WINS 192.168.1.1"



# duplicate-cn
cipher AES-256-GCM
tls-version-min 1.2
tls-cipher TLS-DHE-RSA-WITH-AES-256-GCM-SHA384:TLS-DHE-RSA-WITH-AES-256-CBC-SHA256:TLS-DHE-RSA-WITH-AES-128-GCM-SHA256:TLS-DHE-RSA-WITH-AES-128-CBC-SHA256
auth SHA512
auth-nocache
keepalive 20 60
persist-key
persist-tun
compress lz4
push "compress lz4"
daemon
user nobody
group nogroup
log-append /var/log/openvpn.log
verb 3
##########################################

so, what is the "Error opening configuration file: server.conf"?
is there any evident cause for openVPN to stop working?

thank you for your help

hey, try to move the server.conf to /etc/openvpn/server folder.

fixed, thank you

I wonder why it worked for all those months with the server.conf in wrong position and then stopped working, but now it works again
thank you very much!

the openvpn is working and the server.conf works even in /etc/openvpn/, that was not the problem

for some reason it stopped for a while to work and when I tryed to restart it through
sudo systemctl enable --now openvpn-server@server

the logfile shown

TCP/UDP: Socket bind failed on local address [AF_INET][undef] Address already in use (errno=98)

because the server was already working

to verify this I typed

ps -ef |grep openvpn
nobody 748 1 0 Mar19 ? 00:01:33 /usr/sbin/openvpn --daemon ovpn-server --status /run/openvpn/server.status 10 --cd /etc/openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/server.conf --writepid /run/openvpn/server.pid
user 3116784 3114975 0 19:44 pts/0 00:00:00 grep openvpn

then I killed it
$ sudo kill -9 748

and after a while I could see it again
$ ps -ef |grep openvpn
nobody 3116813 1 0 19:45 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/openvpn --daemon ovpn-server --status /run/openvpn/server.status 10 --cd /etc/openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/server.conf --writepid /run/openvpn/server.pid
user 3116988 3114975 0 19:46 pts/0 00:00:00 grep openvpn

still I don't know what happened but the server is working without any modification