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When an openvpn client is configured to have a debugging level of verb 5 or higher, one will find text similar to "rWrWRwRwRwRwrWrWrWRw" in their OpenVPN log, appearing when packets transit the VPN interface.

It's clear the messages are associated with reads and writes through the tunneled interface, but what is indicated by the change in case? E.g.: r vs R and w vs W?

I have searched man openvpn but am without much luck so far.

ssh2ksh
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  • The code that generates the letters in question is in the files socket.c starting on line 2143 (https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn/blob/master/src/openvpn/socket.c#L2143) and tun.c starting on line 349 (https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn/blob/master/src/openvpn/tun.c#L349). My brain is too fried tonight to search out what the flags controlling the R/r W/w mean. – Evan Anderson Oct 17 '14 at 09:55

1 Answers1

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It is in the man page. It means packets written/read to tun/network:

from --verb:

5 -- Output R and W characters to the console for each packet read and write, uppercase is used for TCP/UDP packets and lowercase is used for TUN/TAP packets. 

plaisthos
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    I clearly did not spend enough time reading the man page. I started diving into the source but was not adept enough to find the answer. This is much easier. Thank you! – ssh2ksh Nov 30 '14 at 16:33