OpenVPN without Admin rights (Win 7 and XP) on Pfsense 2.3.3_p1

[albert.miclat]

Hi All,

I just noticed today that the option in exporting OpenVPN config "Management Interface OpenVPNManager" is longer there,  i use this previously inorder for my site staff to connect via OpenVPN w/out needing admin rights.

Any other way to include this in exporting the openVPN config??

Not sure why they removed this option if its very usefull to other users.

Thanks,
A

[lburr]

Hi Albert,

I didn't know there was a download option for connecting to OpenVPN w/o admin rights. All of our laptops are Windows, so the following works…

After installing OpenVPN on the client laptops, I used Task Scheduler & placed a shortcut on the desktop to run the task.

I created a task named OpenVPN, make sure that the "Run with Highest Privileges" is checked at the bottom of the General tab.
Under the Actions tab, I set it to Start a Program... the Program/Script is the link to the GUI file (might be different on your devices):
    C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenVPN\bin\openvpn-gui.exe
And add the following arguments:
    --connect <user's config="" file="">.ovpn --silent_connection 1
Under the Conditions tab, make sure "Start the task only if the computer is on AC power" is unchecked, in case the user wants to connect while running the laptop on battery.
Under the Settings tab, make sure the checkbox is set to allow it to be run on demand.
Save & close the task.

Then go to the desktop & create a shortcut, the location is:
    C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe /run /tn "OpenVPN" (or whatever you named the task, make sure it's in " ")
Once it's created, right-click on the shortcut & you can change the icon to the OpenVPN icon by going to:
    %ProgramFiles(x86)%\OpenVPN\icon.ico

Hope this helps... yes, it's a lot of work setting up for each user, but it's the only way I've figured out how to do it.

And if you find an easier / better way to do it, please share it with me!</user's>

[jimp]

OpenVPN 2.4.x has its own service and the GUI controls the service – it does not need administrator rights. That works fine on Windows Vista and later. Thus, OpenVPNManager was removed because it no longer was necessary.

That said, OpenVPN 2.4.x is not supported on XP. If you must still use XP, you're on your own there.  If you still need OpenVPNManager, you can install it yourself manually separate from the actual OpenVPN client.