We are currently installing core update 195 and have the following problem. When pressing F5 (send data to refresh) on the Services->OpenVPN-page, the OpenVPN-service immediately stops and can no longer be started (not even on the command line). The only solution is to reboot. Is this a known issue or a bug in this version?
Thanks and regards
Do you get any messages, when trying restart from the command line?
The refresh button is sometimes a bit tricky. It possibly sends the last inputs again. This could result in unexpected behaviour.
Thanks for the feedback. No, there is no error message. I also tried it with earlier versions of IPfire, it seems to be a consistent ‘feature’.
Which web browser?
Have you cleared cookies and cache?
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I use Firefox and had actually cleared my cache and cookies. Once you know that, it’s not really a problem. It’s just surprising.
So I just tried this out on my CU196 vm system and pressing F5 just refreshed the OpenVPN page. The OpenVPN server stayed running and the active connections that I had running stayed working.
I will look at installing a CU195 version and testing it out on that just to confirm with that version as that then matches the version you have.
EDIT:
Also just tested, after disconnecting my android phone connection, I pressed contnuously until eventually the connection updated to showing as disconnected. That must have been something like at least 50 times I pressed the F5 key and the server stayed running the whole time.
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So I installed a CU195 vm system and after starting it I went straight to the OpenVPN page and created the root/host x509 certificate set and then set the global settings and saved them and then started the server.
I then pressed F5 and got a message box with the text
To display this page, Firefox must send information that will repeat any action (such as a search or order confirmation) that was performed earlier.
When I pressed the resend button the OpenVPN server then stopped and could not be started.
I had to reboot.
Then if I tried the F5 button it just refreshed and the server continued working. If I did some other changes and then pressed the F5 button I got the message box mentioned above again. Pressing resend then caused the server to stop again.
Looking at the logs I saw messages about errors due to trying to use things that were already assigned, such as the port number. These errors then caused the openvpn server to not be able to start due to conflicting data.
The same thing happened if I used the refresh icon on the Firefox toolbar. I then got the message box and after pressing resend the server stopped.
What is happening is that when you say to resend firefox is sending all the same data to a running server, with duplicate data and this causes the server to say that it can’t deal with this as some of the options are already used.
When the server stops like that, if you change the port number for thew server from the default 1194 to 1195 as an example and then press the save button and then press start the server starts again. Then stop the server, change the port number back to 1194 and press save and then press the start button and the server starts again.
Basically that message from the browser is a warning that you are going to be sending information to the server that you have already previously sent and do you really want to do this.
Basically you should never press the resend button. If you did this when you were on a bank web site then pressing the resend button after you have made a transaction will trigger a duplicate transaction to be sent.
Here is the info on this message from Mozilla
Do you use the Back button to go to a previous page?
You get an alert about resending POST data if you go back to a page or refresh a page that was previously requested from the server by submitting form data via a (hidden) POST form.
Firefox can only make sure to get the same page by resending that POST form.
Firefox doesn’t know what that form data means, so Firefox asks for confirmation before resending that form data as such an action can cause you to repeat an action and buy another item or post a message another time.
If I ever get that message I normally never press resend beacuse you can’t be sure what is being resent to the server that you are connected to.. I only did it here to test out trying to replicate the problem.
I have no reason to suspect it would not happen with a CU196 system or any other version. I suspect it didn’t happen with my CU196 vm as I already had a working system and was just refreshing the screen without any changes to the screen so the message box is not shown.
I will test out on a CU196 system doing changes and then pressing F5 and see if the same thing happens, which I am expecting to be the case.
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Did a fresh install of CU196 on a vm and ran the same sequence as I did on the CU195 version described in the previous post and the same message box came up and pressing resend caused the openvpn server to crash and stop.
After rebooting I the restored my normal configuration and tested F5 and just a normal refresh occurred. I then stopped the server, changed the port number, saved the config and then restarted the server. I then pressed F5 and got the same message box as previously and pressing resend caused the openvpn server to crash and stop.
So this confirms that you need to be very careful when Firefox, or probably any browser, is asking you if it is okay for it to resend a form page and all its contents, as this is doing a repeat of something that has already been sent and repeating it is likely to cause some conflict issues with IPFire but also with webshop, bank account, hospital or other websites that involve the posting of form content that has already been accepted.
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