User Manual

1. Download the configuration file from the site of the OpenVPN server you plan to connect to.

   For example, on www.vpngate.net, select the server and click on 'OpenVPN Config file'.

   

   Next, select one of the configurations of this server, for example, with the DDNS domain name and TCP 1781.

   

   The configuration file with the .ovpn extension will be downloaded to your computer. Open it in any text editor (e.g. Notepad) and copy all the contents to the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-C keys on the keyboard.

   After that, go to the 'Other connections' page and click 'Create connection' in the 'VPN Connections' section. In the 'VPN Connection Settings' window, select 'OpenVPN' in the 'Type (protocol)' field.

   Then enter the name of the connection in the field 'Connection name' and in the field 'OpenVPN configuration' insert the copied configuration from the clipboard by pressing Ctrl-V. Save the settings.

   

   To set up a work schedule or define the interface through which the connection will work, click on 'Show advanced settings'.

   Once the connection is established, put the switch in the 'On' state.The status of the connection will also be displayed on this page.

   

   Tip

   If you want to use this connection for accessing the Internet, assign the highest priority to it. You will find information about the priorities in the 'Connection priorities' article.

2. On some sites with OpenVPN settings, in addition to the configuration file, there is a login and password specified. For example, on vpnbook.com.

   

   In this case, before copying the content from the configuration file to the clipboard, it is necessary to delete the line:

   auth-user-pass

   and add a section by entering the required login and password values. For example:

   <auth-user-pass>
   vpnbook
   r3d23xs
   </auth-user-pass>

   

3. Other ISPs, such as altvpn.com, provide certificates and keys as separate files. In this case, you need to:

   1. Comment out the lines with the certificate and key file names with the symbol #:

      #ca ca.crt
      #cert xxxxxxxxxxxx.crt
      #key xxxxxxxxxxxx.crt

   2. At the end of the configuration file, add the certificate and key sections and insert the contents of the corresponding files:

      <ca>
      -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      ...       <--insert the body of the certificate from the ca.crt
       file here
      -----END CERTIFICATE-----
      </ca>
      <cert>
      -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
      ...       <--insert the body of the certificate from the xxxx.crt
       file here
      -----END CERTIFICATE-----
      </cert>
      <key>
      -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
      ...       <--insert the key body from the xxxx.key
       file here
      -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
      </key>

4. The privateinternetaccess.com provider has files ca.rsa.2048.crt and crl.rsa.2048.pem in its configuration, the contents of which should be inserted between the sections <crl-verify> </crl-verify> and <ca> </ca> respectively.

   The OpenVPN configuration file will look like this:

   client
   dev tun
   proto udp
   remote sweden.privateinternetaccess.com 1198
   resolv-retry infinite
   nobind
   persist-key
   persist-tun
   cipher aes-128-cbc
   auth sha1
   tls-client
   remote-cert-tls server
   <auth-user-pass>
   xxxxxx       <--insert your login here
   xxxxxx       <--insert your password here
   </auth-user-pass>
   comp-lzo
   verb 1
   reneg-sec 0
   disable-occ
   
   <crl-verify>
   -----BEGIN X509 CRL-----
   ...       <--insert the key body from the crl.rsa.2048.pem file here
   -----END X509 CRL-----
   </crl-verify>
   
   <ca>
   -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
   ...       <--insert the body of the certificate from the file ca.rsa.2048.crt here
   -----END CERTIFICATE-----
   </ca>

Typical errors and solutions:

1. auth-user-pass without inline credentials data is not supported

   The configuration file contains a line for online login/password entry, which Keenetic does not support. Error in the Keenetic log file:

   OpenVPN0 auth-user-pass without inline credentials data is not supported
   OpenVPN0 Exiting due to fatal error

   Delete or comment out all lines of this kind:

   auth-user-pass

2. Block-outside-dns option error

   The block-outside-dns option is configured on the OpenVPN server, which is correctly handled only in Windows. Error in the Keenetic log file:

   OpenVPN0 Unrecognized option or missing or extra parameter(s) in configuration: (line X): block-outside-dns (2.4.4)
   OpenVPN0 Exiting due to fatal error

   Add a line to the OpenVPN client configuration file:

   pull-filter ignore "block-outside-dns"

3. Error when connecting to PrivateTunnel servers

   An error is displayed when trying to connect:

   OpenVPN0 Unrecognized option or missing or extra parameter(s) in configuration: (line 3): client-ip (2.4.4)

   Add a line to the OpenVPN client configuration file:

   ignore-unknown-option client-ip block-ipv6

4. An error occurs when using the askpass /storage/key.txt option:

   Error: private key password verification failed

   This is a limitation of the current OpenVPN implementation in Keenetic. You can only use a key without a password or with a fixed password: 'password'.

5. After updating the router to KeeneticOS 3.9.1, the VPN tunnel to the OpenVPN servers for certain VPN suppliers may no longer be established. You can see the following messages in the system log:

   W [Dec 15 16:52:58] OpenVPN6: DEPRECATED OPTION: --cipher set to 'AES-128-CBC' but missing in --data-ciphers (AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM:CHACHA20-POLY1305). 
   OpenVPN ignores --cipher for cipher negotiations.
   Error: private key password verification failed

   The problem is the outdated encryption format BF-CBC, which is not supported starting from the OpenVPN 2.5.0 client version ( KeeneticOS 3.9 uses the OpenVPN 2.6.0 client version).

   Note

   The BF-CBC chipher is no longer supported in the default configuration. The OpenVPN 2.5.0 version supports AES-256-GCM and AES-128-GCM ciphers by default. You can change this behaviour using the data-ciphers option, for example, by specifying in the settings data-ciphers AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM:BF-CBC. To support very old OpenVPN nodes that do not support cipher negotiation (mode "--cipher"), you can specify data-ciphers-fallback BF-CBC.

   When upgrading to a new version of OpenVPN, the setting "cipher BF-CBC" in older configuration files will be converted with appending BF-CBC to the data-ciphers set. In addition, the data-ciphers-fallback mode is turned on.

   To successfully install the tunnel, you will need to change the directive:

   cipher AES-128-CBC to data-ciphers AES-128-CBC or data-ciphers AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM:CHACHA20-POLY1305

   If it doesn't work, then change the directive:

   cipher AES-128-CBC to data-ciphers-fallback AES-128-CBC

   For maximum cipher negotiation compatibility with the remote server, specify the following directives:

   data-ciphers AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM:CHACHA20-POLY1305

   data-ciphers-fallback AES-128-CBC

   or

   data-ciphers AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM:CHACHA20-POLY1305

   data-ciphers-fallback AES-256-CBC

   Important

   Encryption depends on the remote OpenVPN server. Before changing the directive cipher, please look at the system log.

6. If the following key size error is recorded in the log:

   [E] Dec 16 19:01:38 OpenVPN0: Unrecognized option or missing or extra parameter(s) in configuration: (line 22): keysize (2.6_git)
   [E] Dec 16 19:01:38 OpenVPN0: Exiting due to fatal error
   [E] Dec 16 19:01:38 ndm: Service: "OpenVPN0": unexpectedly stopped.Error: private key password verification failed

   Then in the tunnel configuration, you need to remove the keysize 256 option directive, which is outdated for the updated client OpenVPN 2.6.0, and check the tunnel connection again.

   You can find detailed information for the "keysize" option by this link.