Actually I think I've nailed it down to OpenSSL. I've installed:

openvpn_2.0-1maemo2_armel
and
liblzo1_1.08-3_armel

I already had an ipcop machine running openvpn, so I generated a config file from it and copied it to the n800. I think my problem is the choice of auth type... when I run the config on the n800 I get an error opening the .p12 file with OpenSSL in parentheses.

What I'm wondering, is the openssl build on the n800 unable to parse a p12 file? In the .ovpn file it includes a line "pkcs filename.p12", from the error I'm guessing this is where it's failing. If anyone has any ideas on how I can fix this, I'd love to hear them, I've been staring at this all night with no real luck.

Thanks

I was half asleep by the time I wrote that last night, so, some additional info...

Openvpn itself seems to be working fine. I accidentally clicked on the .p12 file and was surprised to find that it opened. The N800 treated it as a normal cert, asked for some passwords and I guess stored it. I could see this being a problem or a solution.... if I could convince openvpn to use it as stored on the device that would work. I've tried commenting it out of the ovpn file and it just tells me that it needs a key, basically.

I took a closer look at my Ipcop settings, and it seems to favor this auth method. Admittedly I don't know a ton about vpn, but I didn't see any option to key it a different way. I'm sure I could convince it at the command line or something, but I've had success with this auth type on "normal" systems, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to have it work on the n800, especially since it was able to load the cert by itself.

Alright, for anyone who might stumble into this problem in the future, here's the answer.

I had used the command "openvpn --config /media/mmc1/file.ovpn" to open the config file on the external memory card. The same directory contains the .p12 certificate file. The result was "error opening file.p12". Turns out that for whatever reason, openvpn was unable to see the p12 file, requiring it to be specified at the command line with the config file, in this form:

openvpn --config /media/mmc1/file.ovpn --pkcs12 /media/mmc1/file.p12

This could simply be me missing something completely stupid, but the command above has solved it for me.

Could you please post instructions on you got openvpn installed and working on the N800, please? Thanks!

I'm working on an Open VPN howto if you are interested. Should be up on my blog by tomorrow or Monday at the latest.

OK - I've got a howto guide to getting OpenVPN running on the N800 if anyone is interested.

You'll find it on my N800 blog. It's kind of work in progress - if anyone has any comments or corrections they'd be gratefully received.

Cheers,

This is how I have it set up. The openvpn.conf file and the p12 file are in the /etc/openvpn/ folder. My openvpn.conf file looks mostly like this,

The command to get it working is
This works for me.

I am having problems with the vpn script you wrote. When I do a ./vpn , it does the whole gainroot thing, but stops there. Then when I exit out of root, it trys to finish and can't find the openvpn command.

It may be a dumb question, but have you edited the vpn shell script?

As downloaded, it looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
sudo gainroot
cd /etc/openvpn
openvpn --config n800remote.ovpn

which will work using the config file created in the howto.

Since you are using a different setup, it looks to me like at the very least you would need to edit it. Try this:

#!/bin/sh
sudo gainroot
cd /usr/sbin/
openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/openvpn.conf

Then, from /home/user, (which is where vpn should be stored) try running ./vpn
That shoud make you root, move you to the folder in which openvpn is located, and finally run openvpn, with the config file openvpn.conf located in /etc/openvpn/

Does that work?

Nope, I already edited the script. It just stops running it after gainroot.

Sorry for suggesting the obvious. You have got me stumped. The script runs, does the gainroot line, and then doesn't start openvpn? Yet it works fine if you run the command openvpn --config blah blah blah from an xterm?

I don't understand why the script won't run the exact same command. And there are definately no typos in your edited script?