OpenVPN Almost Working

GNU2BSD

My paid VPN is Surfshark and I'm very happy it. They have an app for most every operating system except FreeBSD, so I'm trying to make it work in the terminal via OpenVPN which Surfshark supports. I installed openvpn 2.6.19 from the Software Station, but not any of the other openvpn related packages yet. The below straightforward instructions on the web site for making it work for Surfshark in Linux were easy enough to more or less follow suit here on GhostBSD, but I'm running into an issue I suspect is solvable.

https://support.surfshark.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011051133-How-to-set-up-manual-OpenVPN-connection-using-Linux-Terminal

After successfully downloading the Surfshark openvpn configs (for the different vpn locations) and finding another directory to put them since the /etc/openvpn directory doesn't exist in GhostBSD it's time to launch openvpn in the terminal.

Following the Connect to the VPN instructions the command for the Salt Lake city node would look like this:

sudo openvpn us-slc.prod.surfshark.com_udp.ovpn

It gives me this below message and warning, then prompts me to Enter Auth Username as expected:

026-02-25 00:22:28 DEPRECATED OPTION: --cipher set to 'AES-256-CBC' but missing in --data-ciphers (AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM:CHACHA20-POLY1305). OpenVPN ignores --cipher for cipher negotiations.
2026-02-25 00:22:28 OpenVPN 2.6.19 amd64-portbld-freebsd14.3 [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [LZ4] [PKCS11] [MH/RECVDA] [AEAD] [DCO]
2026-02-25 00:22:28 library versions: OpenSSL 3.0.16 11 Feb 2025, LZO 2.10
2026-02-25 00:22:28 DCO version: FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE-p8 n230764-bbbc10c3a346 GENERIC
Enter Auth Username:

Once I copy and paste that special OpenVPN Auth Username from my Surfshark account (not my regular user name for the GUI app), it then prompts me to Enter Auth Password as expected. (Again, this is the special OpenVPN related password, not my regular password for the GUI app). So now it looks like I am one step away from successfully connecting! However when I try to copy and paste that Auth Password that I get from the Surfshark account or manually type it in the terminal, nothing happens and I must close the terminal window to stop the process.

I suspect that I must either install some of the other openvpn related packages to make this work and/or fixing the issue mentioned in that above warning is related to solving this issue. If anyone is familiar with openvpn, I would appreciate any help.

GNU2BSD

I'm please to report that I got it working after taking the time to write up that explanation, sleeping on it and trying again today. The Auth Password simply isn't visible when you copy and paste it into the prompt in the terminal, so just hit enter and you see a lot of connection info with the phrase Initialization Sequence Completed near the bottom. That means you are connected. I tested it out in the web browser with WhatIsMyIP.com and I am successfully connecting and disconnecting to the different locations each time I run openvpn.

I'll leave this thread up in case this helps someone else. I ended up placing the 284 config files for the different VPN locations inside of usr/local/etc/openvpn, which is otherwise an empty directory, instead of placing them in /etc/openvpn like those instructions for Linux said to do since that directory doesn't exist in GhostBSD. That necessitates using a direct file reference to the config file instead of a relative one like in the Linux tutorial I linked so the command to launch openvpn successfully looks like this in my case to connect to London, UK for example.

sudo openvpn /usr/local/etc/openvpn/uk-lon.prod.surfshark.com_udp.ovpn

Then it asks to type in your system password first, then your specific User Auth credential for your account, then your Password Auth credential for your account (not shown on screen), then hit enter and it displays a lot of connection info with the key phrase Initialization Sequence Completed near the bottom and you are connected.

It now occurs to me that I could create short aliases in Fish for all these many locations like nyc, lon, etc so I don't have to manually look those up and type them in as part of the sudo openvpn command. And also keep the Auth Username and Auth password credentials on the Clipboard manager or somewhere to quickly copy and paste them into the prompts in the terminal to make these connections quickly. Might even be faster than using a GUI app. This was one of the very last hurdles to get GhostBSD as easy to use as Linux Mint for me, so I'm quite happy that it works.

gomadtoll

If the cli vpn is not a requirement , browser extensions are available for surfshark with firefox & chrome. I went the extension route for GhostBSD & Firefox. I use ProtonVPN with success.

GNU2BSD

gomadtoll I haven't tried the browser extensions in a long while. I was under the impression that they don't work at all or work that well as a VPN. I'm pleased to hear that your experience is different. Luckily I got openvpn working with the cli so I'm content for the time being..