OpenVPN not reading credentials automatically R7800 19.07

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Morning,

I've come from DDWRT and have now been running OpenWRT for several months without issues. I believe I was on 18.02 when I first setup my R7800 but this week I decided to try and add VPN functionality. So I thought I'd update to the firmware and start fresh. I followed the links from the specific R7800 supported device page and am now running this;

Hardware: Netgear Nighthawk X4S R7800
Firmware Version: OpenWrt 19.07.1 r10911-c155900f66 / LuCI openwrt-19.07 branch git-20.029.45734-adbbd5c
Kernel Version: 4.14.167

Other than adblock/luci-adblock it is completely vanilla.

I then followed this guide; https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/services/vpn/openvpn/client-luci

I got my .opvn file from my provider (tested it manually on my PC so I know it works) and uploaded it using the luci interface as per the guide. I added my credentials too and I can see the contents of the files in /etc/openvpn (.ovpn and .auth) and all looks ok. I added tun0 in the firewall as per the guide and if I run it manually from cli using; openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/myvpn.ovpn --auth-user-pass it prompts me to type in the credentials and then it connects/works and I can confirm via an attached client that the VPN is up as my external IP changes etc. When I hangup the manual connect, my IP reverts back to my normal ISP.

Problem:

If I restart the router, the VPN doesn't come up automatically (enabled is ticked in luci)
If I click start in luci OpenVPN page, nothing happens

Checking logread I see this:

daemon.notice openvpn(myvpn)[18122]: OpenVPN 2.4.7 arm-openwrt-linux-gnu [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [LZ4] [EPOLL] [MH/PKTINFO] [AEAD]
daemon.notice openvpn(myvpn)[18122]: library versions: OpenSSL 1.1.1d 10 Sep 2019, LZO 2.10
daemon.err openvpn(myvpn)[18122]: neither stdin nor stderr are a tty device and you have neither a controlling tty nor systemd - can't ask for 'Enter Auth Username:'. If you used --daemon, you need to use --askpass to make passphrase-protected keys work, and you can not use --auth-nocache.
daemon.notice openvpn(myvpn)[18122]: Exiting due to fatal error

So I understand the issue is relating to it being started by daemon and therefore no user input can be received i.e. the credentials, so I expected it to read the .auth file and proceed, but clearly it isn't. I tried adding the askpass token in to the config but got the same result.

Please could someone help with this? Sorry I just don't know what to do or where to start. Any advice greatly appreciated.

(first post here, hopefully I wasn't too noob).

Many thanks

2

Hello and welcome :slight_smile:

After uploading the ovpn file, did you also enter username and password as described in the guide?
You're indeed correct that it is failing because of lack of input.

3

Yep sure did.

4

Hmm, that was my only idea ^^;
I have openvpn but as a server instead of client.

If no one else can help you, I might be able to test the validity of the guide with two of my installations but it's gonna be a while before I get time to do it.

5

In the .opvn file, you must add a reference to the .auth file:

auth-user-pass "/etc/openvpn/myvpn.auth"
2 Likes
6

So simple!! Thank you very much. Working perfectly now.

I re-read the initial installation guide and couldn't see this explicitly mentioned, so maybe this can be edited to help others in future.

Appreciate your help.

1 Like
7

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