Configure NetworkManager OpenVPN - Import Configuration Fails
 

Hi,

This is my first post to LinuxQuestions, and it is a bit of a tricky one, but here it goes.

I've been trying to figure out how to "import" a configuration into NetworkManager for OpenVPN. However it appears that NetworkManager has its own configuration format.

What I would ultimately like to do is take an previously defined openVPN configuration file (that works on the command line using openvpn --config openvpn.conf), and import that into NetworkManager. My configuration is using Password with Certificates (TLS).

At the moment I am getting what appear to be gtk related error messages when I attempt to import my openvpn.conf file. With an error message regarding the configuration option ca.

Has anyone else run into this and possibly found a solution?

I am running
- Fedora 11 (kernel 2.6.29.6-217.2.3.fc11.i586)
- NetworkManager-glib-0.7.1-8.git20090708.fc11.i586
- NetworkManager-gnome-0.7.1-8.git20090708.fc11.i586
- NetworkManager-0.7.1-8.git20090708.fc11.i586
- openvpn-2.1-0.32.rc15.fc11.i586
- NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.99-1.fc11.i586

Yea, I found that too. In short, the network-manager openvpn bits are buggy. Here's one relevant bugzilla entry:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...vpn/+bug/91615

There are others out there specifically about importing, too -- which last I checked, was confirmed to not work.

Thanks for the link. I've found that a lot of users have complained about not being able to import configurations with PKCS12 certificates. However my implementation is using PEM crt and key combination. It would appear to me that all configuration imports for NetworkManager-openvpn that use certificates are broken.

Has anyone successfully imported an openVPN configuration into NetworkManager?

My VPN uses PEM/CRT too -- I had no luck. In a way, it's okay, though. You probably want to VPN regardless of what physical network network-manager is copulating over. I found it quite satisfactory just to run the openvpn daemon as a system service with a static config in /etc/openvpn (or whatever.) Rarely will I have to /etc/init.d/openvpn restart or something of the like. Not quite as slick as it would be *were the network manager openvpn extension functional*, but not an all-together unappealing technical solution: namely, it works.