Set up a bunch of OpenVPN connections using nmcli with username and password

vpn-setup.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

USERNAME="$1"
PASS="$2"

for f in  *.ovpn 
do    
        name=`basename -s .ovpn $f`;
        nmcli connection import type openvpn file $f
        nmcli connection modify "${name}" +vpn.data connection-type=password-tls
        nmcli connection modify "${name}" +vpn.data username="${USERNAME}"
        nmcli connection modify "${name}" +vpn.secrets password="${PASS}"
done

This script saved me. Had 50 vpn connections. Like any programmer, they want to automate everything. I wanted to make a script but im very bad at Bash. Then I found this. Can sleep tonight

This script could be simplified and improved a bit. One could also add a thrird argument to provide a path where the processed OVPN files should be located. I usually also append the following configuration to nmcli c mod:

• ipv6.method disabled (I have no IPv6 in my local and remote networks);
• ipv4.never-default yes (I usually want to connect to specific servers only via the VPN; some VPN servers require it to be set to no though).

#!/usr/bin/env bash

USERNAME="$1"
PASS="$2"

for f in  *.ovpn; do
  nmcli c i type openvpn file "$f"
  nmcli c mod "$(basename -s .ovpn "$f")" \
    +vpn.data "connection-type=password-tls, username=$USERNAME" \
    vpn.secrets "password=$PASS"
done

Changes:

• I removed unnecessary ; at a command;
• I replaced deprecated backticks with $();
• I removed curly brackets from ${name}, ${USERNAME} and ${PASS}, as the curly brackets are unnecessary;
• I added quotes around f variable in order to make that filenames that contain spaces and special characters don’t cause any issues;
• I have merged nmcli connection modify commands;
• I have removed name variable, as it would be used only once;
• I have removed + before vpn.secrets, as AFAIk there is only one secret (password);
• I have shortened nmcli connection import to nmcli c i;
• I have shortened nmcli connection modify to nmcli c mod;
• I have moved do to the previous line (this change is not necessary, it is only a style preference).