This recipe will focus on the type of log messages that are typically seen when the OpenVPN configurations are fine, but the network connectivity is not. In most cases, this is due to a firewall blocking access to either the server or the client. In this recipe, we explicitly block access to the server and then try to connect to it.
Install OpenVPN 2.0 or higher on two computers. Make sure the computers are connected over a network. Set up the client and server certificates using the first recipe from Chapter 2, Client-server IP-only Networks. For this recipe, the server computer was running CentOS 5 Linux and OpenVPN 2.1.1. The client was running Fedora 13 Linux and OpenVPN 2.1.1. Keep the configuration file, basic-udp-server.conf, from the Chapter 2 recipe Server-side routing at hand, as well as the client configuration file basic-udp-client.conf.