error in down script can block openvpnsrv.exe

[jhaar]

Hi there

We just had an issue with running openvpn as a service under Windows. It was set to automatically reconnect on outage, but we had an error in our "--down" script. When run through the GUI, that gets notices and you get warned, but when run as a service, the logfile shows it running the down script - and then nothing. No error and not restart. It looks like maybe openvpn.exe outputs the error about the down script, and openvpnsrv.exe blocks on it - stopping/freezing openvpn in it's tracks?

Just a guess, but the end results was running it as a service meant it worked once - and then never worked until a reboot.

Obviously when I fixed the down script so that it didn't exit with an error, everything started working perfectly - auto reconnect on network outage, etc.

This was openvpn-2.3.4 under Win7 64bit

[Samuli Seppänen]

I'm not particularly surprised - openvpnserv.exe is quite a dummy. The reason for this is that nobody has touched it in a long while, and while it basically works there are lots of rough corners.

[Samuli Seppänen]

I'm working on replacing openvpnsrv.exe with ​NSSM. Once/if it proves itself in the field we'll close all openvpnserv.exe tickets as "wontfix".

[Gert Döring]

I think we should revisit this one, now that the 2.4_alpha2 installers with "openvpnserv2" are available - jhaar, can you trigger this issue at will, and if yes, try with 2.4_alpha2 and the new service?

[Gert Döring]

We have shipped openvpnsrv2 for many years now - and since that one restarts openvpn instances if they fail (as far as I understand), this is no longer an issue.

So, closing the ticket now.