read UDPv4 [ECONNREFUSED]: Connection refused (fd=3,code=111)

[M0hanrajp]

Steps to reproduce

• Installed access server by following the steps mentioned
• Access server is running at 172.30.51.73:943.

# Client is able to reach access server 
$ sudo nping --tcp -p 943 172.30.51.73

Starting Nping 0.7.94SVN ( https://nmap.org/nping ) at 2025-05-23 14:47 UTC
SENT (0.0996s) TCP [10.255.255.254:29065](http://10.255.255.254:29065/) > [172.30.51.73:943](http://172.30.51.73:943/) S ttl=64 id=15509 iplen=40  seq=1387992930 win=1480
RCVD (0.0998s) TCP [172.30.51.73:943](http://172.30.51.73:943/) > [10.255.255.254:29065]
...
Max rtt: 0.068ms | Min rtt: 0.044ms | Avg rtt: 0.054ms
Raw packets sent: 3 (120B) | Rcvd: 3 (132B) | Lost: 0 (0.00%)
Nping done: 1 IP address pinged in 2.23 seconds

• Start client with sudo openvpn <config>
• Saw the below errors:

# keeps repeating 
2025-05-23 14:49:34 us=17254 UDPv4 link local: (not bound)
2025-05-23 14:49:34 us=17257 UDPv4 link remote: [AF_INET]172.30.51.73:1194
...
2025-05-23 14:49:34 us=17553 UDPv4 read returned -1
2025-05-23 14:49:34 us=17561 read UDPv4 [ECONNREFUSED]: Connection refused (fd=3,code=111)

• I also observed that there was no tun/tap interface creating during this scenario.
• Note: I'm able to connect to my custom server and docker server (VPN server) using similar configurations.
• The difference was for this specific setup there was no tun/tap interface created.

Please provide suggestions

I have attached full logs (verbose 9) openvpn_log.log

---

Thanks

[novaflash]

This looks to be pretty normal behavior for when an openvpn client cannot reach the openvpn server. The message "connection refused" indicates that the server refused the connection. Since the connection cannot be established there is also no VPN adapter.

This is not a bug, this is a misconfiguration somewhere in your environment.

For support on deploying and connecting to OpenVPN Access Server, try the support team at https://support.openvpn.com/

Good luck.

[M0hanrajp]

I know that it's not a bug.

I'm able to connect successfully In client server case with custom configurations and in docker environment too.

I have tried to debug a little, I wanted to know why tun/tap environment was not created here?

[cron2]

on the client side, tun/tap interface is only created after connection with the server is established and config data ("ip addresses" etc) is known. CONNECTION REFUSED = no connection = no tun/tap. As @novaflash said.