VPN Manager for OpenVPN

    I'm setting up zomboided on libreelec using ansible from a remote system.

    I can update the username and password in

    /storage/.kodi/userdata/addon_data/service.vpn.manager/settings.xml

    But the add-on seems to overwrite the values there with those held in memory.

    How can I set the username and password programmatically?

    It's not practical to use the GUI when setting up many machines with 32 character passwords.

    To be honest it's painful setting up one machine like this.

    Can you consider addressing this problem?

    No, frequent updates to the XML is fundamental to the way the addon works. Most people don't have many machines, and this should be a one time (or infrequent) operation. This is too niche a problem to go and solve given the amount of effort that would be involved.

    Quote from pugwash28

    It's not practical to use the GUI when setting up many machines with 32 character passwords.

    To be honest it's painful setting up one machine like this.

    Can you consider addressing this problem?

    Maybe use a USB keyboard, or a remote control app like Kore in which you can paste a password using "Send text to media center".

    Quote from GarnR1

    Hi ghtester,

    Thanks so much for your help with this issue I have been having. It works! I followed the post you mentioned regarding the updated code by PiotrC. I was about to park this issue and give up completely so a big thank you to you and Zomboided. You guys are legends!

    Hi everyone,

    Sorry I'm having to come back to this forum but I seem to be having an issue that crops up every so often. The problem is basically while connected to the network via ethernet or wlan the internet connection stops working. A dead giveaway is the time is usually incorrect and "VPN Manager" cannot connect. The RPI is accessible via the network but there is no internet connection. The only way to fix it is try disable wan/lan, reset and sometimes it will kick back into life, sometimes it wont.

    This happens every so often and most of the time it works but when it goes down it can be days before I can get it going again by trying the above steps. Also of note is this happens on three separate RPI4's at 2 different locations. Any help would be super appreciated.

    Hi, thanks for the addon, I was struggling to get a working VPN for libreelec and docker containers running apps for a while and so far I've got best results with Zomboided :)

    I'm able to connect with PIA, all apps in docker containers and KODI itself uses a VPN connection and get VPN IP though I cannot get a correct settings to be able to reach my services via my domain address.

    For example I've got my own domain which points to my public IP -> http://www.my_domain.pl/transmission which works fine when VPN connection is disabled in addon. When I'm turning on VPN I cannot connect to previous url but I can connect through LAN ip of a libreelec machine -> 192.168.x.x/transmission

    How I can make things work with domain name and VPN connection up reached from WAN?

    I can image I need to adjust some routing by this is beyond my understanding.

    Line OpenVPN ROUTE: failed to parse/resolve route for host/network: 2000::/3 is error on which I should focus?

    The VPN changes the IP address of your box as viewed by external services to your network. When the VPN is disabled, your previous IP address returns. This is working exactly as designed from your description.

    FWIW, in the past I've used Bitvise SSH with port forwarding to get music streaming working outside of my network. I spent a bunch of time thinking about what I wanted to make available externally and how to do it based on my own network infrastructure and what I was targetting. I did not want to open up ports to make it generally available, or worse punch holes in my network generally.

    Quote from GarnR1

    Hi everyone,

    Sorry I'm having to come back to this forum but I seem to be having an issue that crops up every so often. The problem is basically while connected to the network via ethernet or wlan the internet connection stops working. A dead giveaway is the time is usually incorrect and "VPN Manager" cannot connect. The RPI is accessible via the network but there is no internet connection. The only way to fix it is try disable wan/lan, reset and sometimes it will kick back into life, sometimes it wont.

    This happens every so often and most of the time it works but when it goes down it can be days before I can get it going again by trying the above steps. Also of note is this happens on three separate RPI4's at 2 different locations. Any help would be super appreciated.

    My money would be on your VPN provider killing connections that aren't being used. You should look at whether your ovpn file has a keep alive or ping setting. If the openvpn executable hasn't been killed then it'll still look like it's running and not try to reconnect (even tho you have no path to the provider).

    Of course if you'd provided more diagnostic than 'my internet connection is not working' then we could provide a more informed answer...

    Hi Zomboided,

    Apologies for the lack of information. Due to this fault being intermittent I don't have a way of simulating the issue at this moment. The temporary fix is to do a clean install of Libreelec and I've just done that so everything is working as it should for now. A friend of mine has the same issue so I'll grab his RPI4 and get all the diagnostic data you need. What logs will you require specifically?

    I guess the only other thing to do in the meantime is to give more information regarding the fault before I provide logs.

    The problem affects both LAN & WAN connection. All of a sudden the VPN cannot connect and not only can it not connect to a VPN server but it is also not connected to the internet so I cant use YouTube or any other apps that wouldn't normally require a VPN - the clock also shows an incorrect time. In the network settings it does show it connected to the local network with a local ip 192.168.1.xx but there is no access to the internet.

    The problem remains when I try to change VPN server. In this case I am using ExpressVPN. This VPN connection is set to always be on so its not a case of the RPI constantly connecting and disconnecting from a specific VPN server. I hope this provides a bit more context and if you could please let me know what logs specifically you require for any further help that would be appreciated. Thanks for your time.

    Hi Zomboided,

    Again thanks so much for your time. Below is a link to the log. I've also attached a few screenshots with one showing that while the VPN Manager is disconnected the wired 'state' is only ever ready and not online.

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    Thanks so much

    That log, from boot shows that ovpn can't connect because it can't resolve the names, eg

    2021-08-29 19:38:51.549 T:927 INFO <general>: Sun Aug 29 19:38:10 2021 RESOLVE: Cannot resolve host address: australia-sydney-2-ca-version-2.expressnetw.com:1195 (Name or service not known)

    I can ping australia-sydney-2-ca-version-2.expressnetw.com from my laptop so it suggests an issue with your network. Also from the log it even looks like other addons you have are failing because there's no DNS resolution. I'm not going to be able to tell you why your network is broken, just that VPN Mgr can't connect because the network is not there.

    You might try running without a VPN see if the same thing happens. Although you kind of are in the log that you shared because it doesn't appear to even connect.

    Thanks for your reply and time spent trying to resolve this matter. After posting last night I removed the "potential DNS fix" and uninstalled 'VPN Manager for Openvpn' Completely. The same issue occurred as far as not being able to connect to the internet and the network settings only show the wired state as 'ready' and not 'online' as it should be. I also played around with the network settings to try and see if anything would cause it to reconnect to the internet and noticed that when sliding the 'Connect Automatically' slider to off and on it would always revert back to off. It's like the network settings are completely stuffed and not able to function properly until I do a factory reset or clean install. I'll post this matter to the applicable thread given it doesn't appear to be a VPN issue. I appreciate your help in diagnosing the fault. Best regards.

    zomboided any chance that OpenVPN converted to libreelec 10.0 soon ?

    Thanks for your work.

    Update : I've downloaded the 6.9.3 preview version and it's working like before. Im also connected to the zomboided repository but the vpn is not available from there yet.

    Edited once, last by MasterYoda (September 2, 2021 at 3:15 PM).