Hello Fellow Linux Users,
First of all thanks for viewing my thread. My situation is I have installed and configured OpenVpn in routing mode. Now, I have been trying to uninstall this package and start over on a clean OpenVpn free box. I have tried many ways to purge my system of openvpn:
dpkg -r openvpn
dpkg -i openvpn

I have tried force removes and etc. Most of the openvpn is now in trash.
However, I still have all my configuration files, I have scripts, and I have various other openvpn data still in their original locations. I feel that my system is not yet ready to reinstall openvpn so it will be in routing mode. Any ideas, thoughts or comments? My only other option now is to just reinstall the entire Debian OS which I would rather not do. Thanks a lot.

Dan

Hi

Add the --purge option to dpkg when you remove, and it will remove all config files as well.

Hey Guttorm,

Thanks for the help. I tried:
dpkg--purge remove openvpn
apt-get --purge remove openvpn

and a few other commands. It saids:
Purging configuration files on openvpn ...
dpkg -warning: while removing openvpn, directory /usr/share/doc/openvpn...' not empty so not removed.

I may have edited a couple of those files in that directory structure. Anyhow, my best bet would be to manually go in and rm those files, correct? Im guessing that if you edit/add files to a directory structure that openvpn installs into then you cannot use dpkg to remove that file space.
Anyhow, thanks for your help. This is a good learning experience.

Dan

Hi

The package system will only delete configuration files that has been installed with the package. Even if you change them, they should be deleted when you use the --purge option. But if you add more files, it will not remove them. So I guess there is something inside that directory that gives the warning. Just take a look and delete manually. It could just be some backup files ending with ~ or something.