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jfk

Member

Registered: 2017-12-11

Posts: 118

Fail to autoconnect to VPN at startup with NetworkManager

I'm using a standard set-up with Systemd/LxQt, NetworkManager, networkmanager-openvpn along with nm-connection-editor and the applet (all up-to-date).

I loaded my .ovpn file with the editor and set my password for "this user only" (otherwise it doesn't save in my wallet).

Connection works fine. However, when I try to set my ethernet to "automatically connect to VPN" and restart the system, NM tells me I'm all connected - with tun0 on - but in fact I'm not. That is I got this without resolving DNS:

NetworkManager[894]: <info>  [1593197606.4988] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL

I have to manually reconnect the VPN in order to be connected. Note that this does not happen when I stop/start NetworkManager.service. Only at start-up. My amateur guess is that there is perhaps an issue with the VPN password stored in seahorse during the loading sequence - or another process that needs to be loaded before networkmanager-openvpn. 

EDIT 27.06.20: Following my intuition I found a workaround by implementing a short delay in the execution of NetworkManager.service. I just add this line in my config file (/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/NetworkManager.service) :

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 10

This will of course slow down the booting time but it'll work. That's not very elegant. Perhaps let's keep this ticket as unsolved if someone else has a better explanation/idea.

Last edited by jfk (2020-06-27 17:30:29)