Using the OpenVPN client from GitHub Codespaces

GitHub Codespaces provides a useful environment for development that is separated from your local machine. This provides some nice security benifits due to the fact that the codespace has no direct route to your machine or the network it is sitting in. However, you may have a resource you need to access that is in a private network. This sample illustrates how to set up the OpenVPN (v2) client in a codespace to connect into a OpenVPN capable VPN gateway.

Using the sample

1. Get the openvpn profile config, example: vpnconfig.ovpn

2. Add the file content to a github secret created on your user's config named OPENVPN_CONFIG

3. create a new secret named OPENVPN_AUTH with your user's email and secret like so:

[email protected]
123456

4. Give access to the repository on these two new secrets

5. Create a new codespace on the repository

6. Execute

$ sudo openvpn --config .devcontainer/openvpn/vpnconfig.ovpn --auth-user-pass .devcontainer/openvpn/auth --auth-retry interact --auth-nocache

If MFA is enabled this is gonna show up:

CHALLENGE: Enter OTP Code

Enter your Authenticator's app code. When Initialization Sequence Completed shows up on the terminal, it means the connection was successfull.