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Table of Contents
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"
NOTE: This tells the client that they should use 192.168.1.1 as the DNS server, and localdomain as a domain.
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
sudo apt install resolvconf sudo mv /etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf.orig sudo ln -s /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf
Add the following lines to the client .ovpn file.
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