OpenVPN Site to site server service stopes when Client disconnects

waveworm · September 11, 2021, 4:20pm

Hello,

setup:
Office: has 2 pfsense routers identical running 2.5.2 in HA. all working well. Regular VPNs work good
Remote: pfsense 2.5.2.

I have followed Toms excellent Site to site VPN tutorial here

I can get the VPN to connect and I can route all my traffic over the VPN, however, when I drop the connection from the client side, the server service stops.

I can start the service right back up on the server and it works fine, but if I reboot the client, or the network goes down, the server service of openVPN stops.

Again, the VPN works fine, but when the client disconnects for whatever reason, the deamon on the server stops and needs to be restarted manually. I have tried to recreate the VPN also, and the same result.

neogrid · September 11, 2021, 5:03pm

It’s not clear to me why you would want to disconnect the client for a site to site VPN. It might be the case that a Remote Access server is better suited in your situation.

For my site to site connections, I use a RAS and client at each site, so I have two tunnels.

The other thing you can also do is install the service watchdog package, this might restart the server if it stops.

LTS_Tom · September 12, 2021, 11:41am

Not clear why the service stops, are they any other logs showing that it stopped?

waveworm · September 12, 2021, 10:39pm

I figured some things out.

When I would reboot the client router, the service would also stop. I ended up setting up the watchguard service tool that would restart the service.

Also, I disabled the Exit Notify and that kept the server service running.

Thank you all for your replies. I did try it on another pfsense and it did the same thing on the other unit. When you stop the client connection or reboot the client router, the service on the Server pfsense would go down.

ipv4please · December 20, 2021, 5:55pm

While searching for the solution for the same problem, I saw this forumpost. I have exactly the same behaviour on my PfSense firewall. I implemented @waveworm 's solutions. I hope it helps!