Has anyone successfully set up Openvpn / PIA on chromebook? (Chrome OS)

chicagovpnuser

Instructions for manual setup of open vpn from the chromium project is located here:  http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/how-tos-and-troubleshooting/openvpn-manual-setup

Looks a little daunting, and not clear to me if this will work with PIA.

doaks

Hi chicagovpnuser,

Right now, the setup we support for ChromeOS uses L2TP. Since we use custom ports, in order to use OpenVPN with a Chromebook you either need to manually go into the terminal, or use a setup involving ONC files. Unfortunately due to the complexity of these and how they affect your device, we can't provide support for either of these setups at this time. I'll message you regarding some options though.

shibut

doaks said:

Hi chicagovpnuser,

Right now, the setup we support for ChromeOS uses L2TP. Since we use custom ports, in order to use OpenVPN with a Chromebook you either need to manually go into the terminal, or use a setup involving ONC files. Unfortunately due to the complexity of these and how they affect your device, we can't provide support for either of these setups at this time. I'll message you regarding some options though.

Hi Daniel O,

Would you please be able to send me details how to set up on chromebook? The PIA app (from the Android Store) doesn't seem to work. Thank you.

doaks

Hi shibut,

Certainly. To setup PIA with a Chromebook, you'd follow the instructions from this article on our Knowledge Base:
https://helpdesk.privateinternetaccess.com/hc/en-us/articles/219014778

If you run into issues with the setup, our support team's always available at [email protected] to assist you further.

derungar

Is it possible that the PIA team provide a PKCS12 file?

With this and the given .crt file it should be possible to use openvpn with chromeos over its UI.

cnose

Not sure if anyone will see this, but if you go to https://chromium.googlesource.com/experimental/cros-pia/ there is a way to use PIA without L2TP. If you download his pre-built config it works, however if you want to clone his repo and build your own, I've tried and it says I'm connected, but pages don't load.

I would rather get the most up to date configs, but I guess I'll just stick to his pre-built one since it seems to actually work.

gsf

Thanks, cnose! I had just about given up after running into "internal error" messages again and again with L2TP on my chromebook, but the ONC files at that cros-pia link worked!

cnose

gsf said:

Thanks, cnose! I had just about given up after running into "internal error" messages again and again with L2TP on my chromebook, but the ONC files at that cros-pia link worked!

No problem! The only concern (and I'm not too sure it actually is one) is that the guys' ONC files are based on openvpn configs from May, and not the most recent ones. That could be a potential security issue so tread lightly.

l8rb8r

Hi, if none of the above works for you, I got pia working on my chromebook as posted here: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/23137/getting-pia-to-work-on-a-chromebook#latest.

For this to work, you will need to install a linux distro to run alongside your chrome os with crouton.  But if you want to take your chromebook to the next level, imo this is the way to go anyway.

casinoslotguy

I just followed the instructions from the link provided by cnose and it works like a charm on my ACER Chromebox. Thank you, greatly appreciated...

LedifO

cnose said:

gsf said:

Thanks, cnose! I had just about given up after running into "internal error" messages again and again with L2TP on my chromebook, but the ONC files at that cros-pia link worked!

No problem! The only concern (and I'm not too sure it actually is one) is that the guys' ONC files are based on openvpn configs from May, and not the most recent ones. That could be a potential security issue so tread lightly.

All you has to do is insert "Cipher": "aes-128-cbc", in the OpenVPN section of the *.onc file. I just modified the ovpn_to_onc.py to do the job.