Arguments to connect using Open Vpn windows client

Is it possible to start a windows openvpn client to make it connect using a predefined config (.ovpn) by supplying program arguments using command prompt. Or specifying the arguments in the shortcut when opening from windows shortcut etc.

7 Answers

Solved it as below:

from windows command prompt-

This is going to start the opn vpn gui client directly connecting to the connection specified in the config.

1

Mind you that if the openvpn-gui.exe is already started above answers won't work. Pay attention to the :run section from a little batch file I made to automatically start openVPN connection when not at home:

rem This script is fired from Task Scheduler (using Custom Event filter) when I am NOT at home (not connected to home network)
rem so check if my home NAS is already pingable, because maybe old/previous OpenVPN connection is still open
rem if not then start OpenVPN connection
rem if yes than do nothing
ping -n 1 192.168.10.100 > testping.txt
findstr /r /c:"Reply from \d*.\d*.\d*.\d*.* bytes=\d*.*time[<=]\d*.* TTL=\d*" testping.txt
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 goto run
rem do nothing because NAS is pingable
goto finished
:run
rem be sure to kill previous (closed) openvpn process so reconnecting actually works!
taskkill.exe /F /IM openvpn.exe
taskkill.exe /F /IM openvpn-gui.exe
timeout 1
start /b "" "C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\bin\openvpn-gui.exe" --connect nas_at_home.ovpn
:finished

2

In additional to Flowerking's answer, you could specify the folder in which your ovpn file lives, perhaps to store private key data in user space. For that, use config_dir:

openvpn-gui.exe --connect "client.ovpn" --config_dir "C:\Users\Foo\Documents\protected_crypto_data"

Not sure if this was recently added but there's a "--command" option that can be used to send commands to a running gui instance.
So now you can do
openvpn-gui.exe --command connect config.ovpn

See the options for openvpn-gui.exe by going to the command line and running
openvpn-gui.exe --help

2

Here is a simple example, if you want to connect to more VPNs than one:

"C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\bin\openvpn-gui.exe" --connect vpn1.ovpn --connect vpn2.ovpn

It won't work, if the openvpn-gui.exe is running.

I had the same problems, and also needed the script to not re-open the UI if it was already connected, and to wait for the connection to finish.

I couldn't find a good solution, so I wrote my own. It is here in case it is useful to others:

Windows Vista and above; free; includes C++ source code.

(There's also a similar, older tool there for the Windows built-in VPN client.)

Example usage, with the /verbose switch that outputs detailed info about what it is doing:

C:\> ConnectOpenVPN.exe /connect /adapter "OpenVPN" /config "MyVPN.ovpn"
ConnectOpenVPN: Checking state of "OpenVPN" network adapter...
ConnectOpenVPN: "OpenVPN" network adapter is not connected.
ConnectOpenVPN: Running: "C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\bin\openvpn-gui.exe" --command connect "MyVPN.ovpn"
ConnectOpenVPN: Waiting for OpenVPN GUI to appear...
ConnectOpenVPN: OpenVPN GUI found.
ConnectOpenVPN: Waiting for OpenVPN GUI to close...
ConnectOpenVPN: OpenVPN GUI closed.
ConnectOpenVPN: Waiting for/confirming VPN connection exists...
ConnectOpenVPN: Connected.
ConnectOpenVPN: CONNECT action finshed.

I hope it is useful to other people.

You can improve @Jan 's answer by changing:

ping -n 1 192.168.10.100 > testping.txt
findstr /r /c:"Reply from \d*.\d*.\d*.\d*.* bytes=\d*.*time[<=]\d*.* TTL=\d*" testping.txt

to:

ping 192.168.10.100 -n 1 | findstr /r /c:"Reply from \d*.\d*.\d*.\d*.* bytes=\d*.*time[<=]\d*.* TTL=\d*" && goto :finished

This way you don't need to create a temporary file.

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