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[ankh]

so using the primary Sonic userid and password for the OVPN is, or is not, required?

[ankh]

OpenVPN Connect 2.0.18.203
I'm using -- Mac, that came with these Preferences set as the defaults I think:

HTTP Proxy: has 2 choices, "Set" and "Forget Credentials" --neither is checked

VPN Protocol: checkmark on"TCP" (the other choices are "Adaptive" and "UDP")


(an hour or two ago I changed it to "Adaptive" and it hasn't dropped since)

[ankh]

And -- did something get fixed? Or my luck just changed.
Two computers connected through the VPN (Sonic 2-line fusion, at home) and neither one dropped the VPN connection, even overnight.

and I'd had the VPN dropping from home before my last week away, and during that travel, up til Monday of this week. So something's better now.

[ankh]

A more general question about settings
I found this review of a different provider that also uses OpenVPN:
https://www.bestvpn.com/blog/32567/vpn- ... ed-review/

VPN Unlimited.... uses IPSec for iOS devices, at AES-128.

Meanwhile, Windows and Linux devices make use of OpenVPN using UDP ports (with a recommended ‘stealth mode’ for higher security offered in account ->network settings, using TCP 443), at AES-256, with SHA-1 authentication. Handshaking is handled using RSA-1024, though it would also be good to see an upgrade to RSA-2048, as the former is considered to be vulnerable to NSA and other governmental agency intrusions.

What setting choices in Sonic's OpenVPN are recommended? UDP, TCP, or Adaptive? How secure is each and what level of encryption does Sonic's use for each setting on each device?

Just curious about the details, pointer welcome if this is all explained somewhere I've missed.

[ankh]

aaand --- got OpenVPN downloaded from Sonic to the spouse's iPhone4 (iOS 7)

Now --

I see "you will be automatically connected" -- and "connection profiles can be downloaded for yourself"

downloaded that; Safari found it and imported it and let me enter the password and save the profile.
Oughta work. Got an authentication fail, had to reenter password and slide an unlabeled toggle, but now I see VPN in the top bar in Safari. Guess that's enough.

[ankh]

OK, so the iPhone has an application, it saves and uses a profile and is easy to log into.
Just slide a toggle.
It drops the connection when the iPhone is off, which is reasonable.

How about Mac OSX? I downloaded a "client.opvn" profile but it's not recognized.
I've been opening the OPVN icon at top of screen and entering the password by hand to make it connect.
Is there a way to save the profile for MacOS?

[drew.phillips]

OK, so the iPhone has an application, it saves and uses a profile and is easy to log into.
Just slide a toggle.
It drops the connection when the iPhone is off, which is reasonable.

How about Mac OSX? I downloaded a "client.opvn" profile but it's not recognized.
I've been opening the OPVN icon at top of screen and entering the password by hand to make it connect.
Is there a way to save the profile for MacOS?

The recommended client by OpenVPN for Mac OSX is called Tunnelblick and has the ability to save your connection info into the keychain. It's also much more updated than the default OpenVPN client distributed by our VPN server. They've got a basic intro here under the Quick Start Guide.

Side note: On Windows, I prefer to use the OpenVPN GUI rather than OpenVPN Connect which I find more reliable and also more up to date. It's also available on Linux, but one can just as easily install the "openvpn-client" package and run "sudo openvpn --config sonic.ovpn" to establish the connection which also attempts to reconnect if it drops.

[ankh]

Thank you -- and very timely:

CRITICAL update: Old versions of Tunnelblick will not update to later versions when running on macOS Sierra – updates will always fail. Please update to the latest stable or beta version of Tunnelblick before upgrading to Sierra. See this announcement for details.

[ankh]

Oops. It recognized OpenVPN and told me to terminate it

Now it says: There are no VPN configurations installed.

Tunnelblick needs one or more installed configurations to connect to a VPN. Configurations are installed from files that are usually supplied to you by your network manager or VPN service provider. The files must be installed to be used.

_________
So here is the answer to the question I asked earlier - how do I get a configuration file for the Mac?

The client.opvn file I downloaded from Sonic is recognized by Tunnelblick .

[drew.phillips]

Oops. It recognized OpenVPN and told me to terminate it

Now it says: There are no VPN configurations installed.

Tunnelblick needs one or more installed configurations to connect to a VPN. Configurations are installed from files that are usually supplied to you by your network manager or VPN service provider. The files must be installed to be used.

_________
So here is the answer to the question I asked earlier - how do I get a configuration file for the Mac?

The client.opvn file I downloaded from Sonic is recognized by Tunnelblick .

Tunnelblick is "just" a GUI — a front end for OpenVPN. Each Tunnelblick VPN Configuration includes an OpenVPN configuration file (a file with an extension of .ovpn or .conf) that Tunnelblick tells OpenVPN to use to make a connection. The details of how OpenVPN should connect using the configuration are contained in that file.

It looks like the relevant part of the documentation for getting it to recognize your OpenVPN configuration file (client.ovpn as downloaded from us) is at Creating and installing a Tunnelblick VPN configuration. In some cases it sounds like it can automatically find that file or will do these steps automatically during it's setup wizard that appears on startup when no connections are configured.

Hopefully that helps. If you need to download your config again, go to https://ovpn.sonic.net/?src=connect and make sure "Login" (not connect) is selected from the drop down. Enter your Sonic credentials and it should start downloading your user locked ".ovpn" config file.