# Private Internet Access VPN

This article details the installation and usage of private-internet-access-vpnAUR. For the general information on the service and additional packages, see Private Internet Access.

## Installation

Install the private-internet-access-vpnAUR or private-internet-access-vpn-devAURpackage.

The package provides a tool that downloads the OpenVPN configuration files and stores them in `/etc/openvpn`. However, it updates the file names to better support using them on the command line.

Configuration for the package is stored in `/etc/private-internet-access`

## After Installation

If there are any issues with connectivity and you are running connman, please restart `connman-vpn.service`.

## Usage

### Enabling auto-login

Enabling auto-login allows a user to connect to the VPN service without having type any passwords on the command line (needed when using networkmanager). To set this up, you must do the following:

- Create `/etc/private-internet-access/login.conf`
- Add your username and password in the file. Make sure LINE 1 is your username and LINE 2 is your password. Do not add any other text to the file or it will not work (this is a limitation of OpenVPN):

    /etc/private-internet-access/login.conf

    USERNAME
    PASSWORD

- Change permissions of the file to 0600 and owner to root:root:

    # chmod 0600 /etc/private-internet-access/login.conf
    # chown root:root /etc/private-internet-access/login.conf

This secures the access to the file from non-root users. Read more on File permissions and attributes. It is required when activating auto-login.

- Run `pia -a` as root.
  - If you have networkmanager installed, it will create the configuration files for networkmanager. Make sure to restart networkmanager to see them.
  - If you have connman installed, it will create the configuration files for connman. Start `connman-vpn.service` if not running already. It will auto load the profiles.
  - Regardless, it will create the OpenVPN `.conf` files in `/etc/openvpn`.

Tip: Disable auto-login in configurations by adding `openvpn_auto_login = False` to `/etc/private-internet-access/pia.conf` and running `pia -a`

#### Manually Connecting to VPN

Run `openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/client/{config_file_name}` as root. `{config_file_name}` will be listed in the /etc/openvpn directory or run `pia -l`.

#### Automatically connect to VPN

- For connman:

1. enable the `connman-vpn.service`.
2. Run `pia -a` as root.

Note: These are unsupported configurations.

- For openvpn you can look here: OpenVPN#systemd service configuration.

#### Advanced Options

Warning: Protocols and port combinations no longer work as of Version 3.1. See Github Issue #17 or PIA's Support - Which encryption/auth settings should I use for ports on your gateways?

- Create `/etc/private-internet-access/pia.conf`
- For the `[pia]` section:

option | option values | description
--- | --- | ---
openvpn_auto_login | True,False | Default: True; Configures if OpenVPN configuration files should have auto-login enabled. See #Enabling auto-login

- For the `[configure]` section:

option | option values | description
--- | --- | ---
apps | cm, nm | Default: all; This configures which applications are configured. The application will configure all applications installed; however, if a user only needed configurations for Conman, then setting this to 'cm' would generate only those configurations even if they had NetworkManager installed. OpenVPN configurations are always generated. cm = Conman; nm = NetworkManager
port | See for list: PIA's Support - Which encryption/auth settings should I use for ports on your gateways? | Default: 1198

### Example Configuration

The configuration enables auto-login, configures only Connman and OpenVPN, uses port 8080 over UDP, and configures only US East, US West, Japan, UK London, and UK Southampton VPN endpoints. OpenVPN is always configured.

    /etc/private-internet-access-vpn/pia.conf

    [pia]
    openvpn_auto_login = True

    [configure]
    apps = cm
    port = 8080
    hosts = US East, US West, Japan, UK London, UK Southampton

### Troubleshooting

In order to use the NetworkManager applet to connect:

       - Right click the Network Manager icon in the system tray
       - and click "Configure Network Connections..."
       - then click "Add"
       - choose "Import VPN..."
       - browse to "/etc/openvpn/client/CA_Toronto.conf" or whichever configuration you would like to use
       - then click "Open"
       - Remove only the ":1198" from the "Gateway:" ( if present ) as only the domain name should be in this box
       - for the "Username:" type in your "p1234567" username
       - for the "Password:" type in the password that goes with your "p-xxxxx" username
       - then click "Advanced..."
       - set "Custom gateway port:" and set it to "1198"
       - click on the "Security" tab
       - set the "Cipher:" to "AES-128-CBC"
       - set the "HMAC Authentication:" to "SHA-1"
       - click "OK"
       - click "OK" again

Concerning DNS Leaks (See: python-pia/#13), Network Manager leak information due to how /etc/resolv.conf is setup. The script below is a work around posted by @maximbaz to work around the problem. You may need to disable IPv6 if you continue to get leaks.

    /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/pia-vpn

    #!/bin/bash
    #/etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/pia-vpn

    interface="$1"
    status=$2

    case $status in
      vpn-up)
        if [[ $interface == "tun0" ]]; then
          chmod +w /etc/resolv.conf
          echo -e "nameserver 209.222.18.222\nnameserver 209.222.18.218" > /etc/resolv.conf
          chmod -w /etc/resolv.conf
        fi
        ;;
      vpn-down)
        if [[ $interface == "tun0" ]]; then
          chmod +w /etc/resolv.conf
        fi
        ;;
    esac

## See also

- OpenVPN
- NetworkManager
- connman
- python-pia GitHub
- PIA Client Support

Category:

- VPN providers