Connect before windows logon does not work

[PauloHRosa93]

First, forgive me for translation errors. I'm Brazilian and I'm using Google Translate.

Today I have a huge headache with external users who need to login the first time via domain. They need to log in as a local user, connect to OpenVPN, then click Switch User and log in with their Active Directory credentials. Once recorded in cache, then they can log in normally later.

In a perfect world, OpenVPN starts and connects even before the user enters their credentials, so the equipment "would already be on the company's network", connecting to the domain server's network.

Try all the ways I found on the internet, even with the help of ChatGPT. And nothing worked effectively. The most I could do was for OpenVPN to start automatically, but only after I had logged in as a user, which makes no sense.

But now I saw that OpenVPN has a native function when installing:

Enable OpenVPN Pre-Logon Access Provider

I left it enabled during installation, and it still doesn't work! OpenVPN does not start as a service already connecting before logging in with the user.

I do not know what else to do

[selvanair]

In a nutshell here are the requirements for PLAP to work:

• connection profile (config file) should be installed in config-auto folder
• the config file must have the option management 127.0.0.1 <pwfile>
  There are a few more options that may be required depending on your use case (see the links below).
• OpenVPNService (so called automatic service) must be installed and started
  At this point the connection will start at boot, and will show up in OpenVPN GUI -- where you can supply username password etc to complete the connection.
• PLAP module must be installed
  At that point the connection will show up in the login screen in PLAP menu, and the user can connect before logon.

Consult the following for some more info:

1. https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn-gui#persistent-or-pre-started-connections and the section on PLAP below it
2. https://gist.github.com/selvanair/1a1f12b9b2a040f5b92b9fb5f3d83f91

If you still have issues after following those instructions, come back here with specific questions.