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How can I check if OpenVPN is running on my server? I have tried with "sudo systemctl status openvpn", but I'm not sure if everything is ok, because I get: "Active: active (exited) since ..."

● openvpn.service - OpenVPN service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/openvpn.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (exited) since Mon 2017-10-23 08:01:05 CEST; 1h 3min ago
  Process: 2356 ExecStart=/bin/true (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 2356 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Tasks: 0 (limit: 4915)
   CGroup: /system.slice/openvpn.service

Why "exited"? The similar occurs two lines bellow (Process and Main PID).

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  • Please add the complete output of your command to your question. Usually you can run sudo service openvpn status to see if it's running.
    – derHugo
    Oct 23, 2017 at 6:42

4 Answers 4

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The service you should check is openvpn@NAME where NAME is the name of your configuration file (without the .conf).

So if your openvpn configuration file is /etc/openvpn/client-home.conf you should use systemctl status openvpn@client-home.

Here is an example output:

● [email protected] - OpenVPN connection to client-home
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/[email protected]; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2017-10-23 07:57:37 CEST; 2h 15min ago
     Docs: man:openvpn(8)

Where you can see the service is active and running.

IMHO, the best way to test a service is to test it's functionality, in this case accessing another machine connected through the VPN.

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  • Tnx. I have tried with "openvpn.server" instead with "openvpn@server".
    – JanezKranjski
    Oct 23, 2017 at 9:09
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Check openvpn@* instead of just openvpn to show the status of whichever configuration you have loaded.

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The config file for OpenVPN has changed location, today on debian based OS like linuxmint is placed in

/etc/openvpn/server/server.conf

And to check its service status its done by

$ systemctl status [email protected]
  ● [email protected] - OpenVPN service for server
       Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/[email protected]; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
       Active: active (running) since Sun 2022-01-09 20:55:09 CET; 2h 47min ago
         Docs: man:openvpn(8)
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0

Another way to check if your on VPN is to look at your interfaces. So run ifconfig (when VPN is not on) and then when VPN is on and you should see the difference

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  • 2
    Welcome to AskUbuntu! Could you expand on this? Some people may not be familiar with the differences between the output when the VPN is active or not 👍🏻
    – matigo
    Mar 22, 2022 at 8:40

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