OpenVPN 2.4 & OpenVPN Manager

ryon · Dec 28, 2016, 6:05 PM

Inquiring about the possibility/plan of incorporating the latest release of OpenVPN, v2.4.0, into pfSense 2.4:

https://openvpn.net/index.php/download/community-downloads.html

I'm interested in the support of new ciphers.

Also inquiring on the possibility or plan of replacing the OpenVPN Manager; pfSense OpenVPN Client Export currently uses v0.0.3.6. There is an updated version, v0.0.3.8, but I seem to remember reading some posts about this version being problematic. The OpenVPN GUI seems to have been updated with the new v2.4.0 release and is now able to run as a non-admin.

https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn-gui/

jimp · Jan 2, 2017, 3:19 PM

Updating the export package to OpenVPN 2.4 already on my todo list: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/7055

I might take another stab at updating the manager app. It has been quite some time since I tried and encountered problems. At least from their changelog it looks like they're keeping up with OpenVPN 2.4 as well, which changed the name of the service.

If we update that, however, it might mean we have to shut off the manager option for older versions. OpenVPN 2.4 won't support XP, so we might keep the 2.3.x option downloadable for a while. We kept 2.2.x around for a bit after 2.3 shipped initially as well. In case users had problems with one version or the other.

doktornotor · Jan 2, 2017, 3:59 PM

Hmmm, the only result I ever achieved with the manager was completely broken OpenVPN. The manager service was not starting (leaving the entire thing totally pointless), and worse yet, even the normal GUI could not find its own configs either due to some bad interference from the manager.

jimp · Jan 2, 2017, 4:08 PM

It does seem to work for some, but not all. I try to stay away from it since I have no problems running as admin.

If the new version has improved then that will be beneficial for everyone.

phil.davis · Jan 2, 2017, 4:19 PM

I have been running the existing OpenVPN Manager fine. The advantage is that users without admin priv can start/stop… their OpenVPN client up to the office. Happy to test a new version when available.

jimp · Jan 3, 2017, 6:03 PM

OK, so I apparently misread things in one place or another and was wrong here. OpenVPN docs can be quite detailed but they lacked some detail here that could have made things much more clear.

The OpenVPN 2.4 client installs a service, OpenVPNServiceInteractive ("OpenVPN Interactive Service") and sets it to run.
As long as that service is running, the OpenVPN 2.4 GUI will talk to the service and it does not require Admin privileges.

So the manager is no longer needed, it seems. More testing would be appreciated.

While I am updating it for OpenVPN 2.4, I'm going to remove the manager from the OpenVPN client export package as it is no longer necessary.