OpenVPN not able to start after upgrade to 2.2.5

lobotiger · Nov 11, 2015, 3:44 PM

Hi guys, I noticed that after upgrading to 2.2.5 a few days ago that my openvpn is not able to startup. It's always in a not started state.

Is this a known issue or did something change?

LoboTiger

KOM · Nov 11, 2015, 4:01 PM

Not a known issue AFAIK. Have you checked your General log and OpenVPN log (Status - System Logs)?

lobotiger · Nov 11, 2015, 5:09 PM

This is what I see from the OpenVPN logs:

Nov 11 17:08:08 openvpn[38386]: OpenVPN 2.3.8 i386-portbld-freebsd10.1 [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [MH] [IPv6] built on Aug 21 2015
Nov 11 17:08:08 openvpn[38386]: library versions: OpenSSL 1.0.1l-freebsd 15 Jan 2015, LZO 2.09
Nov 11 17:08:08 openvpn[38592]: NOTE: the current –script-security setting may allow this configuration to call user-defined scripts
Nov 11 17:08:09 openvpn[38592]: Control Channel Authentication: using '/var/etc/openvpn/server1.tls-auth' as a OpenVPN static key file
Nov 11 17:08:09 openvpn[38592]: TUN/TAP device ovpns1 exists previously, keep at program end
Nov 11 17:08:09 openvpn[38592]: Cannot open TUN/TAP dev /dev/tun1: Device busy (errno=16)
Nov 11 17:08:09 openvpn[38592]: Exiting due to fatal error

Nothing in the regular system logs.

LoboTiger

KOM · Nov 11, 2015, 6:13 PM

Looks like a second instance is trying to grab the adapter but it's already in use.

Shell in and run:

ps auxww | grep openvpn

What do you get? If you get something like:

root 11362 0.0 0.3 21728 6296 - Ss 21Oct15 3:17.88 /usr/local/sbin/openvpn –config /var/etc/openvpn/server1.conf

then use the kill process_ID command to kill that process (11362 in this example, so kill 11362) and then try to start OpenVPN again via Status - Services.

lobotiger · Nov 11, 2015, 8:09 PM

I get this:

$ ps auxww | grep openvpn
root 30513 0.0 2.3 12732 5216 - Ss Sun06PM 0:46.25 /usr/local/sbin/openvpn –config /var/etc/openvpn/server1.conf
root 81867 0.0 1.0 10584 2204 - S 8:05PM 0:00.01 sh -c ps auxww | grep openvpn 2>&1
root 82214 0.0 0.9 10388 2000 - R 8:05PM 0:00.01 grep openvpn

I ran the kill command on 30513 and restarted the process and the openvpn process has started successfully now.

Thanks for the assistance!

LoboTiger

P.S. Would a reboot have sold the problem too?

divsys · Nov 17, 2015, 1:40 AM

Would a reboot have sold the problem too?

Very likely, OpenVPN tries to keep itself alive through many scenarios but there are a few that require an explicit "Kill-Restart".

Once back up and running it should be very stable.