Basic info

• Time: Wednesday 30 July 2025 at 14:00 CEST (12:00 UTC)
• Place: #openvpn-meeting channel on !LiberaChat IRC network

Topics

• New: build failures
  Changes in Gerrit do not automatically pick up fixes from master, so sometimes we see a lot of build failures even though those are fixed in master.
  Some options were discussed, seems like the one preferred is to reject pushes that are behind. djpig will look into it.

• New: Reference manuals OpenVPN 2.x
  There was a mistake made on the main website which for a few hours? or days? made the reference manual 404.
  This has been restored. However the URL will slightly change in the future, but a redirect on the old URL will be in place.
  mattock raised the question where the latest OpenVPN man page should be hosted.
  When discussing this we agreed that djpig will contact the technical writer for openvpn.net and see if the ingestion/updating process can be smoother.
  Independently we can also investigate getting the manuals on the wiki somewhere, perhaps automated.

• Updated: push_update / live route updates
  Client-side support for push_update is now merged.
  For server-side support, company did QA on it with openvpn2 but found some missing features that are being added now.
  At least client-side support will probably make it into alpha3.

• Updated: Release 2.7
  A 2.7 alpha3 release is planned for 31 July.
  This includes a fix for a couple of rare crashes on Windows DCO driver. We'll backport these fixes to the Windows installer for 2.6.
  The FreeBSD patch for float is now in review.
  For the DCO related changes, DCO+TCP is improving. Epoch data keys still needs to be done, mssfix not planned yet.

• OpenVPN community meetup 2025
  https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/CommunityMeetup2025
  When: weekend of 25 and 26 october.
  Where: Napoli, Italy.
  Meeting room: it looks like this may be it; https://www.hotelparadisonapoli.it/en/home-page.aspx we will work to get budget cleared for this.
  Hotel: probably Paradiso Napoli. Beer: yes.
  T-shirts: yes.

• format code using clang formatting
  It seems prudent to do this before the real 2.7 release.
  It was discussed and there's some additional work to be paid either on reviewer or submitter side.
  Strategy will be; get all code into beta1, collect bugfixes, reformat everything, then beta2.
  Collect more bugfixes and then do release 2.7.0 and branch it off into its own release branch.

• cve.mitre.org deprecation notice
  The MITRE CVE site we are linking to for all CVE record references has a deprecation notice. Instead cve.org is being advised as the site to use from now on.
  novaflash made an internal company ticket to update links on the main site.
  novaflash search/replaced all the CVE links on community wiki to the new address.

Backlog

• minor issue on community.openvpn.net site
  While not causing critical issues, there are some cache related issues caused by cloudflare.
  This requires some finetuning of settings to solve issues like: Logging in requires to use query string parameter to defeat cache.
  Changes like enabling dark mode can linger in cache and affect other visitors.
  Sometimes pages added don't show in menu until cache is defeated in some way.
  The "are you human" screen is quite persistent and annoying, perhaps it can be fixed.
  novaflash is working with the company to look into finetuning the cloudflare settings to address these issues.

• forums situation
  The current forums are not maintained, not working well, and flooded with spam.
  We have a contributor (minx) with web development experience willing to set up something new, but migrate the old forum contents.
  To the question where the instance should be hosted, community indicates it should be under the community AWS infrastructure.
  To the question what authentication system should be used, community indicates it should just be the built-in system from the forum solution itself.

• snapshot releases via Chocolatey software
  mattock contacted the Chocolate package maintainer for OpenVPN and asked if he would be okay with publishing Windows MSI snapshots as well.
  Seems like the maintainer is amenable to helping us achieve that goal.

• 2.7 security audit
  ordex mentioned that OTF offers the possibility to get a 3rd-party security audit for supported projects. So we will apply for that around or after the 2.7 release to review the latest code.

• Tunnelcrack progress (see TunnelCrack community wiki article)
  Status update on TunnelCrack mitigations:
  The tunnelcrack mitigation for Windows has gone in master, which will go to 2.7 release. There is the possibility for it to go to 2.6.x if we can find testers for this.
  Windows, openvpn2: block-local merged to master, not to 2.6.x. openvpn3: in code review.
  Linux, openvpn2: in progress. openvpn3: in progress.
  macOS: to be determined.
  iOS: to be determined.
  Android: not vulnerable.

• donation collection
  From earlier exploration it is clear that setting up a legal entity is not worth the expense at this point. We're just starting out with donations.
  What we can do is start out with an existing company that can collect the money and puts it to good community use. ordex volunteers to take this on.
  There are some options to consider. There may be existing solutions that we want to consider.
  PayPal seems overly expensive with all their fees.
  Stripe could be worth considering for credit card processing.
  GitHub Sponsors was mentioned as a possible solution, this is worth investigating.
  Open Collective was also mentioned, that needs some investigating how that exactly would work for us.

• Static-key mini how-to is outdated.
  This page is outdated badly: https://openvpn.net/community-resources/static-key-mini-howto/
  company will send this to tech writer to redo based on https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn/blob/master/doc/man-sections/example-fingerprint.rst info. and also retain a link to that github doc.
  having a simple guide online will help adoption