P Private Internet Access OVPN config edits for OpenVPN connection.

For whatever reason, Private Internet Access client wasn’t providing me with reliable connection. I downloaded the VPN profiles and tried to manually connect via. OpenVPN client using CLI but it was throwing some weird errors related to certificate validations. After few research, I found out that we need to remove crl-verify section, and replace compress with simply comp-lzo no.

Downloading OpenVPN .ovpn profiles for P.I.A.

1. Head over to the downloads section of P.I.A after logging in.
2. Scroll to the bottom towards the VPN Settings section > OpenVPN Configurations and download the configuration files.
3. Uncompress the profiles wherever you want, I’ve it stored at /Users/pms/Downloads/openvpn-strong.

Editing the .ovpn files.

1. Replace all occurances of compress with comp-lzo no.

    sed -i -e 's/compress/comp-lzo no/g' *.ovpn
   

2. Replace all occurances of <crl-verify> block.

    sed -i -e 's/"<crl-verify>                              
    -----BEGIN X509 CRL-----
    MIIDWDCCAUAwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQENBQAwgegxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMQswCQYDVQQI
    EwJDQTETMBEGA1UEBxMKTG9zQW5nZWxlczEgMB4GA1UEChMXUHJpdmF0ZSBJbnRl
    cm5ldCBBY2Nlc3MxIDAeBgNVBAsTF1ByaXZhdGUgSW50ZXJuZXQgQWNjZXNzMSAw
    HgYDVQQDExdQcml2YXRlIEludGVybmV0IEFjY2VzczEgMB4GA1UEKRMXUHJpdmF0
    ZSBJbnRlcm5ldCBBY2Nlc3MxLzAtBgkqhkiG9w0BCQEWIHNlY3VyZUBwcml2YXRl
    aW50ZXJuZXRhY2Nlc3MuY29tFw0xNjA3MDgxOTAwNDZaFw0zNjA3MDMxOTAwNDZa
    MCYwEQIBARcMMTYwNzA4MTkwMDQ2MBECAQYXDDE2MDcwODE5MDA0NjANBgkqhkiG
    9w0BAQ0FAAOCAgEAppFfEpGsasjB1QgJcosGpzbf2kfRhM84o2TlqY1ua+Gi5TMd
    KydA3LJcNTjlI9a0TYAJfeRX5IkpoglSUuHuJgXhP3nEvX10mjXDpcu/YvM8TdE5
    JV2+EGqZ80kFtBeOq94WcpiVKFTR4fO+VkOK9zwspFfb1cNs9rHvgJ1QMkRUF8Pp
    LN6AkntHY0+6DnigtSaKqldqjKTDTv2OeH3nPoh80SGrt0oCOmYKfWTJGpggMGKv
    IdvU3vH9+EuILZKKIskt+1dwdfA5Bkz1GLmiQG7+9ZZBQUjBG9Dos4hfX/rwJ3eU
    8oUIm4WoTz9rb71SOEuUUjP5NPy9HNx2vx+cVvLsTF4ZDZaUztW9o9JmIURDtbey
    qxuHN3prlPWB6aj73IIm2dsDQvs3XXwRIxs8NwLbJ6CyEuvEOVCskdM8rdADWx1J
    0lRNlOJ0Z8ieLLEmYAA834VN1SboB6wJIAPxQU3rcBhXqO9y8aa2oRMg8NxZ5gr+
    PnKVMqag1x0IxbIgLxtkXQvxXxQHEMSODzvcOfK/nBRBsqTj30P+R87sU8titOox
    NeRnBDRNhdEy/QGAqGh62ShPpQUCJdnKRiRTjnil9hMQHevoSuFKeEMO30FQL7BZ
    yo37GFU+q1WPCplVZgCP9hC8Rn5K2+f6KLFo5bhtowSmu+GY1yZtg+RTtsA=
    -----END X509 CRL-----
    </crl-verify>"//g' *.ovpn
   

3. Create auth file.

   cat > auth
   <username>
   <password>
   

4. Replace auth file in all configs to utilize the same credentials.

   sed -i -e 's/auth-user-pass/auth-user-pass auth/g' *.ovpn
   

Connect to the VPN using .ovpn-e file.

sudo openvpn --config us_atlanta.ovpn-e

sudo openvpn --config us_atlanta.ovpn --auth-user-pass auth