OpenVPN client as a package

[Draconis]

Hi Guys (and gals),

I've recently setup an SSL VPN for the teaching staff to vpn into the school ....it works brilliantly however with openvpn you need root / administrator access to the client to allow IP route changes etc.

 

Now I've created a package and it's in the package list and will start to deploy but it fails with a non informative error (just package failed)

and I've created many variants of this package changing one thing at a time in the hope it deploys, but no joy yet.....

 

 

when I created the package I set the various things I need to set before initiating the second scan of the build pc such as admin rights for the openvpn gui and how only the vpn group in AD can run it as administrator etc, but it still fails to deploy, if you run this client stand alone as administrator it installs fine ...but I'd rather not have the task of getting hold of 200 laptops to install the client on if you get where I'm coming from.

 

Any pointers as to what might be going wrong would be appreciated OR if anybody had managed to get openvpn client packaged and deployable would be most welcome....

[Safa]

Hi

 

I read the tech notes this is what you need to do, the first copy and paste explains that you need admin rights to install the software, however if you set it up as a service rather than an install you can bypass this. Good luck and have fun ^^

 

Windows Notes

 

OpenVPN for Windows can be installed from the self-installing exe file on the OpenVPN download page. Remember that OpenVPN will only run on Windows XP or later. Also note that OpenVPN must be installed and run by a user who has administrative privileges (this restriction is imposed by Windows, not OpenVPN). The restriction can be sidestepped by running OpenVPN in the background as a service, in which case even non-admin users will be able to access the VPN, once it is installed. More discussion on OpenVPN + Windows privilege issues.

 

source : https://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/howto.html#windows

 

 

 

Running OpenVPN as a Windows Service

 

When OpenVPN runs as a service it will start a separate OpenVPN process for each configuration file it finds in the \Program Files\OpenVPN\config directory and will output a logfile of the same name to the \Program Files\OpenVPN\log directory.

When installed as a service, OpenVPN will default to manual start mode. You can go to the "Services" control panel in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools to start the service or to set it to Automatic Start mode.

A sample config file has been provided in \Program Files\OpenVPN\config\sample.ovpn.txt which can be adapted to your needs.

Service Notes:

 

 

• When you install OpenVPN as a service, you are actually installing openvpnserv.exe which is a service wrapper for OpenVPN, i.e. it reads the config file directory and starts up a separate OpenVPN process for each config file.openvpnserv.exe performs the same function under windows as the /etc/init.d/openvpn startup script does under linux.
  
• When you stop the OpenVPN service, it will send a terminate signal to all OpenVPN processes which were started by it.
  
• If the OpenVPN service wrapper (openvpnserv.exe) encounters fatal errors, it will write them to the windows event log, which can be viewed in Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer -> Application Log.
  
• If the OpenVPN processes themselves encounter errors, they will write them to their respective log files in the log file directory.
  
• There is a one-to-one correspondence between an OpenVPN process, an OpenVPN config file, an OpenVPN log file, and a TAP-Win32 adapter which represents an endpoint of a VPN tunnel.
  
• OpenVPN tunnels are point-to-point in their simplest form, but can be made point-to-multi-point through the use of bridging or routing (see below).
  
• Multiple OpenVPN processes can run concurrently, each on a different TAP-Windows adapter.
  
• openvpn.exe gets all configuration information from its config file, not from the registry.
  
• The openvpnserv.exe program (the service wrapper) gets several string parameters from the registry which can be modified by the user. If you change any of these parameters, you should be able to upgrade OpenVPN to a new version without the installer overwriting your changes:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\OpenVPN
  config_dirconfiguration file directory to scan, defaults to "\Program Files\OpenVPN\config"config_extfile extension on configuration files, defaults to "ovpn"exe_pathpath to openvpn.exe, defaults to "\Program Files\OpenVPN\bin\openvpn.exe"log_dirlog file directory, defaults to "\Program Files\OpenVPN\log"log_appendif set to "1", multiple instantiations of an OpenVPN process will append onto the same log file, if set to "0" (default), each new instantiation will truncate the previous log fileprioritythe windows priority class for each instantiated OpenVPN process, can be one of:
  
  • "IDLE_PRIORITY_CLASS"
    
  • "BELOW_NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS"
    
  • "NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS" (default)
    
  • "ABOVE_NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS"
    
  • "HIGH_PRIORITY_CLASS"
    

 

Source: https://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/install.html

Edited January 4, 2016 by Safa