Hi all this is my first post so try to be less rude if i am wrong.

Last couple of days i have been trying openvpn2.1 on centos 5.3. I am trying a simple thing

server ------------------------------client
192.168.7.120 --------------------------192.168.7.150

I want to establish a ROUTED OPENVPN with x509 (PKI) certification not with static key, between this two pc. what i did is

# I created iptables for tun
IPTABLES -A INPUT -i tun+ -j accept

1.Generate master Certificate
2.Generate server certificate
3.Generate client certificate
(I copied client certificate from server to client in a secure channel)

4.Generate DH parameter
5. Edit server.conf on server pc
local 192.168.7.120
port 1194
proto udp
dev tun
ca /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/ca.cert
cert /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/server.cert
key /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/server.key

dh /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa/2.0/keys/dh1024.pem

server 10.8.8.0 255.255.255.0


6. Edit client.conf on client pc (A windows pc)

client
dev tun
proto 1194
remote 192.168.7.120 1194

ca c:\\Program Files\OpenVPN\easy-rsa\keys\ca.cert
cert c:\\Program Files\OpenVPN\easy-rsa\keys\client1.cert
key c:\\Program Files\OpenVPN\easy-rsa\keys\client1.key

7. Now Starting OPENVPN in server

openvpn server.conf

###Here is my problem cause this command is not working
and showing me following error.

-bash: openvpn: command not found


Please help me where is my fault or whether there is any other requirement or not.

Assuming you installed using Yum or an RPM, you should have a file in /etc/rc.d/init.d/ called openvpn... it is this that you should use to start openvpn... as follows

# /etc/rc.d/init.d/openvpn start

If you installed from source, you will need to find the openvpn binary, which you can do by entering...

# find / -iname openvpn

It should be in your path, but obviously is not...

What user did you try to run openvpn as? You probably need to be root.

[root@vmcent ~]# /etc/rc.d/init.d/openvpn start
/etc/rc.d/init.d/openvpn: line 9: /etc/openvpn/: is a directory


can you help me what will i do now..and i am doing it as root.

Ho did you install openvpn? I'm guessing you installed from source rather than using yum?

I have downloaded openvpn-2.1_rc18.tar.gz and installed with rpm and can you tell me how to install with yum

yum install openvpn

would have installed the CentOS specific version.

Are you saying you created the rpm from the tarball? If so, uninstall with rpm -e and install with yum.

dear billymayday;
I have added 3rd party repository to my centeos-base-repos for installing openvpn. i have used "yum install openvpn" it has downloaded lzo2-2.02-3.el5.rf.i386.rpm openvpn-2.0.9-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm these two packages. Now what will do with these things coz ./configure is not working.

can you check my previous configuration pocess whether the process is right or not.

Yum should have installed them.

Did you remove the old version first?

My server side is ok now and its up and running. But my client side is not working when ever i start client side with "openvpn client.ovpn"
it shows me following error.
"Options error: In [CMD-LINE]:1: Error opening configuration file: client.ovpn"

I created client.crt and client.key on server side and copy these files along with ca.crt to the client windows machine.

Can anyone tell whether i have to create the client.crt and client.key file in server side or in the client side.

So are you trying to run the client on Windows? If so what client, where is client.ovpn, etc.?

Oh its working. I copied client.ovpn in C://programfiles/openvpn/config/ directory and client.cert, client.key, ca.crt in easy-rsa/keys directory thats why its was not working . Next i copied all the files in C://programfiles/openvpn/config/ directory and changed directories in client.ovpn files. Now its working. thanks everybody for giving me time.

A small thought for you. I keep a small batch file on my desktop to map remote samba shares with a simple double click and password entry. Works a charm. Note that you will probably need to use the IP rather than server name if you are using a routed connection.