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I have a server with OpenVPN installed on it, and I also have laptops (clients) running Ubuntu with openvpn installed. On the client, if I manually run the command "sudo openvpn /etc/openvpn/client.conf" the client is configured to prompt me for login info (username and password) which it will then use in authentication with the server. I would like this process to happen automatically on startup. Basically, I need logging into the client laptop and logging into the openvpn server to be the same action. I want the the authentication information for logging into openvpn to be the same as the login information for logging into the laptop's local user account. How can I do this?? Details please.

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  • Does it have to be Username/Password? I know you can do this via pubkey auth on /etc/network/if-up.d
    – CaffeineAddiction
    Jun 1, 2016 at 20:43
  • What would the method you are talking about entail?
    – Tommy Orok
    Jun 1, 2016 at 20:59

2 Answers 2

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I assume You have downloaded an .ovpn file with the information about the vpn.

Create a file in the same folder called auth.txt and insert in its first line the username of your vpn login, in second line the vpn password, e.g.: 

admin
master

Save the file and close it. Edit Your .ovpn file: find the line starting with auth-user-pass and add auth.txt. Save the file and close it.

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I would write the full path to auth.txt e.g. auth-user-pass /etc/openvpn/auth.txt but (at least on Ubuntu) it also works with just the filename, if in the same folder.

Now You should be able to call sudo openvpn <.ovpn file> without providing credentials (apart from the sudo password).

I based information on here and here

There is a small note how to autorun scripts on system boot: here

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Use "auth-user-pass credentials-file.txt" option in your client config file. The credentials file should be in the form:

username
password

Yes, you will have the plaintext file with username and password.

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  • Thank you so much for your reply, but that only tells me how I would take care of the automatic authorization part. How do I configure openvpn to start upon login in the first place?
    – Tommy Orok
    Jun 2, 2016 at 10:30
  • Try to run it from bash-profile or so. Implement locking to not to run it more than once.
    – Nikita Kipriyanov
    Jun 8, 2016 at 6:02

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