Monitoring OpenVPN Connection in Raspberry Pi Made Easy

A step-by-step guide on checking the status of your OpenVPN connection on a Raspberry Pi device using command line interface. …

A step-by-step guide on checking the status of your OpenVPN connection on a Raspberry Pi device using command line interface.

In this article, we will learn how to check the status of an OpenVPN (OVPN) connection on a Raspberry Pi device running Linux. OVPN is a popular virtual private network (VPN) protocol that enables secure and encrypted communication between devices over the internet. If you’re using a VPN service with your Raspberry Pi, it’s important to know whether the connection is active or not. Here are the steps to check OVPN status on Raspberry Pi:

1. Open the terminal on your Raspberry Pi device by pressing CTRL + ALT + T.
2. Type the following command and press Enter:

sudo systemctl status openvpn@client.service

This command will show you the current status of the openvpn@client service, which is responsible for managing your OVPN connection. If your VPN connection is active, you should see an output similar to this:

● openvpn@client.service - OpenVPN connection to client
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/openvpn@.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2022-03-16 15:47:59 UTC; 1min 28s ago
 Main PID: 12345 (openvpn)
    Tasks: 2 (limit: 4915)
   Memory: 1.3M
   CGroup: /system.slice/system-openvpn.slice/openvpn@client.service
           └─12345 /usr/sbin/openvpn --daemon ovpn-client --status /run/openvpn/client.status 10 --cd /etc/openvpn --script-security 2 --config /etc/openvpn/client.conf

The Active: active (running) line indicates that the service is running and your VPN connection is established.

3. To check the status of the OVPN connection in more detail, use the following command:

sudo openvpn --config /path/to/your/client.conf --status /run/openvpn/client.status

Replace /path/to/your/ with the actual path to your client.conf file. This command will display information about the connection, such as the server IP address, client IP address, and data transfer statistics:

OpenVPN CLIENT LIST
Updated,Sun Mar 20 18:47:59 2022
Common Name,Real Address,Bytes Received,Bytes Sent,Connected Since
clientname,SERVER_IP:1194,13.61 MiB,10.71 MiB,Sun Mar 20 18:48:00 2022
ROUTING TABLE
Virtual Address,Common Name,Real Address,Last Ref
10.8.0.6,clientname,CLIENT_IP:59321,Sun Mar 20 18:48:01 2022
GLOBAL STATS
Max bcast/mcast queue length,0
END

Make sure to note the Connected Since timestamp to see how long your VPN connection has been active.

If you don’t have a VPN connection established or the service is not running, the output will be different:

● openvpn@client.service - OpenVPN connection to client
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/openvpn@.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)

or

OpenVPN CLIENT LIST
Updated,Sun Mar 20 18:47:59 2022
TITLE,UNDEF,ERROR: No such file or directory (errno=2): /run/openvpn/client.status

In this case, you may need to start the service using sudo systemctl start openvpn@client.service or check your configuration files for errors.

Conclusion: To check the OVPN status on a Raspberry Pi device, use the systemctl command to see if the openvpn@client.service is running and the openvpn --config command to view detailed information about your VPN connection. This will help you ensure that your VPN is active and securely protecting your data.