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Ubuntu - VPN - OpenVPN - Configure OpenVPN to resolve local DNS & hostnames

To allow accessing local computers on the LAN by their hostnames instead of just by IP Address.

NOTE: By default, the client resolv.conf file does not contain a line to point the client to the VPN DNS server; nor does it contain a line telling the client what the local domain name is.

Adding these lines (and removing when VPN is down) to resolv.conf automatically is the goal.

Server

Ensure the following lines are in the server config file /etc/openvpn/server.conf.

/etc/openvpn/server.conf

push "dhcp-option DNS 192.168.1.1"
push "dhcp-option DOMAIN localdomain"
</code>
 
<WRAP info>
**NOTE:**  This tells the client that they should use 192.168.1.1 as the DNS server, and localdomain as a domain.
</WRAP>
 
 
----
 
===== Client =====
 
Install the **resolvconf** package to give your OpenVPN client the ability to rebuild the resolv.conf file when you start and stop your VPN connection; backup/remove your existing resolv.conf file; and create a symlink to resolvconf's resolv.conf file. This can all be done by running the following
 
<code bash>
sudo apt install resolvconf
sudo mv /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf.orig
sudo ln -s /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf
</code>
 
Add the following lines to the client .ovpn file.
 
<file bash>
up /etc/openvpn/update-resolv-conf
down /etc/openvpn/update-resolv-conf

NOTE: This will run update-resolv-conf every time the client connects to or disconnects from the VPN server.

Test

Run the openvpn command with --script-security 2 flag to allow update-resolv-conf to be run:

sudo openvpn --script-security 2 --config /path/to/client.ovpn

Wiki

Table of Contents

Ubuntu - VPN - OpenVPN - Configure OpenVPN to resolve local DNS & hostnames

Server

Test