[SOLVED] Open VPN Server daemon not starting

Bambos

Dear Community members,

i have a pfsense 2.6 device mostly used for open VPN Server tunnels for site to site.
When adding new open vpn server instance, i have the error unable to contact daemon , service not running ?

and after starting the service with play button it doesn't start.

on another pfsense with the same settings, is able to start the instance successfully, so something is wrong with the specific pfsense. There are 12 other VPN Server instances running on different ports without problem.

Open VPN System logs

Mar 26 23:42:03 openvpn 38526 Exiting due to fatal error
Mar 26 23:42:03 openvpn 38526 Non-Hex character ('G') found at line 8 in key file '/var/etc/openvpn/server7/secret' (48/128/256 bytes found/min/max)
Mar 26 23:42:03 openvpn 38526 NOTE: the current --script-security setting may allow this configuration to call user-defined scripts
Mar 26 23:42:03 openvpn 38496 library versions: OpenSSL 1.1.1l-freebsd 24 Aug 2021, LZO 2.10
Mar 26 23:42:03 openvpn 38496 OpenVPN 2.5.4 amd64-portbld-freebsd12.3 [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [LZ4] [MH/RECVDA] [AEAD] built on Jan 12 2022
Mar 26 23:42:03 openvpn 38496 Cipher negotiation is disabled since neither P2MP client nor server mode is enabled

any comments appreciated !

rcoleman-netgate

@bambos said in Open VPN Server daemon not starting:

Mar 26 23:42:03 openvpn 38526 Non-Hex character ('G') found at line 8 in key file '/var/etc/openvpn/server7/secret' (48/128/256 bytes found/min/max)

There's your reason. Check your key.

Bambos

@rcoleman-netgate Hello Sir,
Yes, i make some trial and error and i notice that the issue comes when i let pfsense generate the shared key !

While i use another vpn instance already existing with copy , and edit the settings, is working !
Also this is happening on the client side ! both pfsense on 2.6 version.

Is this a bug or i'm doing something wrong ? I just exchanging the generated key with copy paste. If generated on server, client is not accepting it and cause this error. If key generated on client, and copy to server, server gets the error !

I will try 2-3 things and let you know.