Centos 7 OpenVPN + PIA

Last updated 14th feb 2019
Packages to install
Firstly install the latest updates to your machine.
yum update -y
Then we need to install the epel repository.
yum install epel-release -y
And then the final tools we’ll need for general setup and to run PIA.
yum install openvpn unzip curl wget -y
Configuration
Now on to the fun part firstly navigate to the openvpn directory.
cd /etc/openvpn
Use wget to download the zip file that contains all the vpn configuations for each PIA location.
wget https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/openvpn/openvpn.zip
Use unzip to extract the .opvpn files to the directory.
unzip openvpn.zip
Create a credentials file for your PIA logins with your favourite text editor (mines nano) default is vi.
nano cred.conf
Place your PIA credentials in the file like this.
[username] [password]
If you are also using nano press CTRL+x and then Y to save and quit. Then we need to change the permissions on the file.
chown root:root cred.conf
chmod 400 cred.conf
Create a symlink for the config file you want to use
ln -s /etc/openvpn/[PIA-server].ovpn server.conf
Open the config file
nano [PIA-server].ovpn
add/edit the line auth-user-pass to auth-user-pass cred.conf
On my server, I have SELinux set to permissive which means it logs what it would normally block if you would like to do the same edit the se config file /etc/
Alternatively run the command
restorecon -Rv /etc/openvpn/
Enable openvpn at boot.
systemctl enable [email protected]
Start Openvpn Warning this may close your ssh session.
systemctl start [email protected]
Check to see if its worked.
curl ipecho.net/plain ; echo
If its different it worked now reboot and see if starts on boot as expected.
reboot now
Run the curl command again
curl ipecho.net/plain ; echo
If its still different you have now successfully set the box to connect to your PIA VPN on boot