SoftEther VPN Server unreachable for admin on macos Mojave

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DMA
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2024 11:25 am

SoftEther VPN Server unreachable for admin on macos Mojave

Post by DMA » Thu Jan 11, 2024 6:55 pm

Hi,
I had the server v4.42 built, installed and working nicely on OS X 10.9 and 10.11 El Capitan. .install.sh, then vpnserver start, then vpncmd, then caps and hublist, all OK.
I installed it on Mojave and can't get it to work !
Configs :
- All 10.9 10.11 and 10.14 configs are VMWare Fusion 11.5.7 VMs.
- All 3 VMs have their own IPv4
- SIP seems not to be the problem as it is disabled on 10.14.
- Full disk access is allowed for vpnserver, vpncmd (and hamcore.se2 in case it is needed).
- I have tried both sudo su before manual launch in Terminal and placing a successful plist in the LaunchDaemons folder with a Restart.
The vpnserver process starts and shows in Activity monitor but it does not operate properly on 10.14 :
- The log folders are not created.
- The config file is not created.
- The server can't be reached on any port.
- No ports related to the vpnserver are shown by a port scan using Network monitor (but they show on 10.9 and 10.11).
- At last, chmod -R 777 on the whole vpnserver folder changes nothing (before you ask ;) )

I have seen posts related to successful use on macOS releases newer than 10.14, so it should work…
Does anyone know what I did wrong ?

solo
Posts: 1285
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2021 10:31 am

Re: SoftEther VPN Server unreachable for admin on macos Mojave

Post by solo » Thu Jan 11, 2024 11:37 pm

Check your old working VM backup image on the new host.

DMA
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2024 11:25 am

Re: SoftEther VPN Server unreachable for admin on macos Mojave

Post by DMA » Fri Jan 12, 2024 2:56 pm

All 3 installs on VMs are fresh installs. When it failed on 10.14, I tried on older OS releases.
Check your old working VM backup image on the new host.
Copying the 10.11 install in place of the 10.14 install on the 10.14 VM :
- The log folders remain the same as they were on the 10.11 : no log file is created by the launch on 10.14. So, no way to check what's going wrong with the logs (same as the original 10.14 install).
- The server remains impossible to admin (Error occurred. (Error code: 1) Connection to the server failed. etc.) when trying to connect with vpncmd (same as the original 10.14 install).
- No ports are opened by the vpnserver (same as the original 10.14 install).
Copying the 10.14 install in place of the 10.11 install on the 10.11 VM :
- The log folders missing on 10.14 are created and the log files are created.
- The vpncmd can reach the vpnserver as expected, and the caps and hublist commands are OK.

To sum it up : the working 10.11 install fails on the 10.14 (as the original 10.14 build), and the failing 10.14 install works on the 10.11 (as far as my testing goes).

solo
Posts: 1285
Joined: Sun Feb 14, 2021 10:31 am

Re: SoftEther VPN Server unreachable for admin on macos Mojave

Post by solo » Fri Jan 12, 2024 9:49 pm

Try DE, it may resolve the issue and has new features to offer https://github.com/SoftEtherVPN/SoftEth ... le-edition

DMA
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2024 11:25 am

Re: SoftEther VPN Server unreachable for admin on macos Mojave

Post by DMA » Mon Jan 15, 2024 5:05 pm

Thank you for the suggestion.
Trying DE (having DE to work reliably for the company who asks me for a production deployment or just using DE to find out what goes wrong with the stable release on macOS 10.14+ built) means an unpredictable number of work hours that they won't pay for, I mean, by far!
Sorry… some day, maybe.
Thanks again, anyway.

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