RPi2 + Raspbian + openVPN serve + missing Easy-RSA

[pteeson]

I am working through installing openVPN server on my RPi2 and am stuck.
There are several good tutorials and I've been following the steps in this one:
<http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33548728>. The others have the same steps.
Apparently they are all now out of date wrt easy-rsa.

After doing the usual sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
I moved on to sudo apt-get install openvpn. This appeared to work.

The next step is to generate keys using Easy-RSA.
cp -r /usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/easy-rsa/2.0 /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
No such file or directory.

I did some digging and openVPN says that it's no longer part of the main project.
It's now a sub-project. I found it here: <https://github.com/OpenVPN/easy-rsa>

I have no idea how to add it to whatever data base apt-get uses.

Yes I looked at the Debian Package Management docs and got lost.
Please point me at a simple example of how to add easy-rsa to the apt db.

TIA

respect...

Peter

[lmarmisa]

Try:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install easy-rsa

[rrichiez]

Hey have you gotten openvpn to work? if so please give me heads up on what script or page, op system you used to get it worked . I think I have tried every one out there with no luck... please help

rrichiez
thanks before hand

[DougieLawson]

Try:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install easy-rsa

There's no separate easy-rsa package. You'll find it in /usr/share/easy-rsa after installing the openvpn package.

[davidcoton]

Dougie: Read the OP. I don't know if that is right or not, but if it is, your answer is not helpful.

[DougieLawson]

You have to read the docs, make a directory (mkdir -p /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa) and copy the easy-rsa scripts (cp -R /usr/share/easy-rsa /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa). They then work just fine. The hard part of getting easy-rsa to run is defining all the junk in ../easy-rsa/vars file.

Code: Select all

export KEY_COUNTRY="GB"
export KEY_PROVINCE="Hampshire"
export KEY_CITY="Basingstoke"
export KEY_ORG="Example-Organisation"
export KEY_EMAIL="example@example.co.uk"
export KEY_CN="Example-Canonical-Name"
export KEY_NAME="Example"
export KEY_OU="Example-Domain"

[pteeson]

I took a spare SD card and formatted it and installed Raspbian from the NOOBS 1.5 zip.
After which I did the usual sudo apt-ge update && sudo apt-ge upgrade
and then sudo apt-gt install openvpn
From the tail of the log for sudo apt-get install openvpn

[ ok ] Restarting virtual private network daemon.:.
Setting up easy-rsa (2.2.2-1) ...
Setting up opensc (0.14.0-2) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u1) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (215-17+deb8u2) ...
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo -s
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# cp -r /usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/easy-rsa/2.0 /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
cp: cannot stat ‘/usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/easy-rsa/2.0’: No such file or directory
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# ls /usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/
sample-config-files sample-keys sample-scripts

!!!! So as I stated in the OP the instructions in the tutorials are not up to date.!!!!

[pteeson]

However this command does work as per Lawson's helpful post.
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi# cp -R /usr/share/easy-rsa /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa

So thanks to all who replied and hopefully this will document where the dirs now live.

[pteeson]

Hey have you gotten openvpn to work? if so please give me heads up on what script or page, op system you used to get it worked . I think I have tried every one out there with no luck... please help

rrichiez
thanks before hand

I installed Raspian from the NOOBS zip file as per the instructions.
And followed the instructions in this tutorial
<http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33548728>

However note the amendment in the previous post to this.....

I've stopped for today but will post when I get it working.

[DougieLawson]

You have to remember that tutorial on the BBC was produced by a journalist based on stuff someone technical had told her in the green room or in a pre-production meeting. It's no surprise that it has an error in it. Also it was probably done before Jessie went generally available so things may have moved.

[pteeson]

Plausible. But there are at least 2 other tutorials that state the same thing.
This is one of the eternal problems with documentation - it is almost always post-factum and done as a volunteer effort.

Actually the relevant tutorials themselves, as far as I have read them, are pretty good.
I note there is a Debian OpenVPN Wiki here <https://wiki.debian.org/OpenVPN>.

I'll take a look and see if there is something that would be relevant for Raspbian.

[malicious]

There is no need to copy the easy-rsa directory and files manually anymore. In /usr/share/doc/easy-rsa, there is a file README.Debian(Debian is the distribution Raspbian is based on) explaining the new way to start using easy-rsa. Rather than copy by hand, you call the script /usr/bin/make-cadir. For example, if one wants a working copy of easy-rsa in /etc/openvpn/, the commands would be:

make-cadir /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa
cd /etc/openvpn/easy-rsa

You should be able to proceed with creating a certificate authority and whatnot from there.