How to connect to VPN from the command line in Linux?

Question

I have different tunnels that I configured using the network manager GUI.

When I login to my desktop, I'm connected to the internet without any tunnels. To connect to a tunnel, I usually click on the network manager tray icon > VPN connections > Some VPN

I need that done automatically on startup, so I need to know how to do that in the cli.

It would also be nice if I could make sure that no application connects to the internet before the connection is tunneled.

Any ideas?

I'm using Ubuntu 12 and openvpn.

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 22 '12 at 16:38

7

You should have nmcli in that version

nmcli con list

That will list connections you have setup. Find the VPN one

nmcli con up uuid <uuid>

answered Jun 22 '12 at 16:38

Mike

22,310
7
56
79

I tried this in the cli but it requires a secret: "no valid VPN secrets" – HappyDeveloper Jun 22 '12 at 17:10
1

I was executing this as root, therefore the secret was not available. I had to execute this as the user that was logged in. Thanks! – HappyDeveloper Jun 22 '12 at 17:26
I'm having the same issue, but when I try it as my normal user, I get `Connection activation failed: Not authorized to control networking.` Any ideas? – Jonathon Reinhart Jun 04 '15 at 00:55
For me, the first command was `nmcli con show` (`list` didn't exist). – Robin Winslow Aug 30 '17 at 07:26

AndrewQ · Answer 2 · 2012-06-22T16:57:02.603

This is what the OpenVPN HOWTO says: "If you install OpenVPN via an RPM package on Linux, the installer will set up an initscript. When executed, the initscript will scan for .conf configuration files in /etc/openvpn, and if found, will start up a separate OpenVPN daemon for each file.". Ubuntu is derived from Debian, and may have a different structure.

Check in /etc/openvpn if you have that dir and .conf files, then if you have in /etc/rc5.d/ a link to the initscript. To check if the tunnel is up, you may ping the other side of the vpn.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 17 '23 at 20:56

0

For authorization, you can use:

nmcli con up id <your vpn name> -ask

you'll be asked for missing password or username

answered Mar 17 '23 at 20:56

rundekugel

137
5

How to connect to VPN from the command line in Linux?

3 Answers3