import OpenVPN connection into Linux NetworkManager

The most desktop oriented linux distributions uses NetworkManager for configuring the network interfaces. NetworkManager also supports VPN connections and so there is also a plugin for OpenVPN. To use it, you can use NetworkManager UI and setup your VPN connection or you can import a .ovpn file, also via console.

sudo nmcli connection import type openvpn file /home/frank/myconnectionprofile.ovpn

NetworkManager will parse the ovpn file and extract all known settings and convert it to an NetworkManager VPN profile. Unfortunately NetworkManager doesn’t support every OpenVPN directive, so it may not work. If this is the case you can only use openvpn directly to connect to the VPN.

openvpn myconnectionprofile.ovpn