[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#797399: network-manager-openvpn-gnome: OpenVPN connections fail due to missing nm-openvpn user+group

[Andreas Olsson]

Package: network-manager-openvpn-gnome
Version: 1.0.6-1
Severity: important

Since upgrading to network-manager* 1.0.6-1 the gnome network
applet (upper right corner) won't let me enable OpenVPN connections.

Whenever I try to enable a VPN connection the state flips right back
to disabled, without there being any actual connection attempt. While
failing, this is what "journalctl -u NetworkManager" has to say.


  aug 30 13:45:10 corrino NetworkManager[740]: <info>  Starting VPN service 'openvpn'...
  aug 30 13:45:10 corrino NetworkManager[740]: <info>  VPN service 'openvpn' started (org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.openvpn), PID 7093
  aug 30 13:45:10 corrino NetworkManager[740]: <info>  VPN service 'openvpn' appeared; activating connections
  aug 30 13:45:10 corrino NetworkManager[740]: <info>  VPN plugin state changed: starting (3)
  aug 30 13:45:10 corrino NetworkManager[740]: <info>  VPN connection 'halleck' (ConnectInteractive) reply received.
  aug 30 13:45:10 corrino NetworkManager[740]: <warn>  VPN connection 'halleck' failed to connect interactively: 'User 'nm-openvpn' not found, check NM_OPENVPN_USER.'.
  aug 30 13:45:10 corrino NetworkManager[740]: <warn>  error disconnecting VPN: Could not process the request because no VPN connection was active.

Looks like there is supposed to be a nm-openvpn user?

Manually adding a nm-openvpn user instead brought on a complaint about a missing nm-openvpn group.

  aug 30 13:56:43 corrino NetworkManager[740]: <warn>  VPN connection 'halleck' failed to connect interactively: 'Group 'nm-openvpn' not found, check NM_OPENVPN_GROUP.'

Manually adding a nm-openvpn user and putting it in a nm-openvpn group did do the trick.

  # adduser --group --system nm-openvpn


See also the following bug/solution from Arch Linux

  https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/46124
  https://projects.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/commit/trunk?h=packages/networkmanager-openvpn&id=9aa4b8be2ea71103197f1bee4e37374b8a0c60cc


-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.1.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=sv_SE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages network-manager-openvpn-gnome depends on:
ii  libatk1.0-0              2.16.0-2
ii  libc6                    2.19-19
ii  libcairo-gobject2        1.14.2-2
ii  libcairo2                1.14.2-2
ii  libdbus-1-3              1.8.20-1
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2         0.102-1
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0       2.31.5-1
ii  libglib2.0-0             2.44.1-1.1
ii  libgtk-3-0               3.16.6-1
ii  libnm-glib-vpn1          1.0.6-1
ii  libnm-glib4              1.0.6-1
ii  libnm-gtk0               1.0.6-1
ii  libnm-util2              1.0.6-1
ii  libpango-1.0-0           1.36.8-3
ii  libpangocairo-1.0-0      1.36.8-3
ii  libsecret-1-0            0.18.3-1
ii  network-manager-openvpn  1.0.6-1

network-manager-openvpn-gnome recommends no packages.

network-manager-openvpn-gnome suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information