Re: Two questions about key generation for clients

On Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:23:31 +0100, David Sommerseth via Openvpn-users
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 21/01/2024 17:34, tincantech via Openvpn-users wrote:
><snip>
>> 
>>> Can I edit this file and remove the item --suppress-timestamps to possibly
>>> enable the timestamps? And remove the machine-readable-output item in the actual
>>> service conf file?
>>> Will that result in human-readable timestamps?
>> 
>> The recommended method is to copy the file to /etc/systemd/system.
>
>Actually, the preferred way is to use
>
>     # systemctl edit openvpn-server@CONFIG_NAME
>
>You now get an new file where you just add the "ini sections" and 
>settings you want to modify.  In this case, you would add the 
>"[Service]" section and add the modified ExecStart= line to your liking.
>
>These changes are saved separately and will always be merged into 
>service setup, even when the unit file from the upstream OpenVPN package 
>gets updated.
>
>If you do the "copy to /etc/systemd/system" trick, that will completely 
>override the unit file shipped with the OpenVPN package.

I don't really understand this, could you expand a bit:

1) The "sudo systemctl edit" command brings up a blank page for me, what is the
editor commands in this window? I am used to how nano works but not how I can
operate in this case. Tried Ctl-X and Ctl-C to get back from it...

2) It seems one can *add* commands using this but how do I *remove* a setting I
don't want like the one we discuss now?
I want to NOT have the --suppress-timestamps item there!

3) What is the correct syntax for executing the command?

On my system I have this:

systemctl | grep openvpn

  [email protected]
loaded active running   OpenVPN service for server
  [email protected]
loaded active running   OpenVPN service for serverlocal

Do I do it like so:
sudo systemctl edit [email protected] 
or like this:
sudo systemctl edit openvpn-server@server

4) And can I use sudo or must I switch to su first to get to the # prompt?


-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden