Windows: running OpenVPN as a service

One of lesser-known features of the Windows version of OpenVPN is its ability to run it as a service. This allows OpenVPN to start and establish a VPN connection without a user logging in on the system. The OpenVPN service is installed by default, but is not started automatically.

In this recipe, we will show how the OpenVPN service can be controlled using the OpenVPN GUI application and how to perform troubleshooting on the service.

Getting ready

In this recipe, the server computer was running CentOS 5 Linux and OpenVPN 2.1.1. The client computer was running Windows XP SP3 and OpenVPN 2.1.3. Keep the configuration file, basic-udp-server.conf, from the Chapter 2 recipe Server-side routing at hand, as well as the client configuration file basic-udp-client.ovpn from the Chapter 2 recipe Using an ifconfig-pool block.

How to do it...

1. Start the server:

   [root@server]# openvpn --config basic-udp-server.conf
   

2. Before starting the OpenVPN GUI application on the client...