24 votes

NordVPN changes to username and password encryption cause Auth_FAIL in OpenVPN/Gluetun

Recently NordVPN rolled out an update which forced users to use an encrypted username and password combination when connecting through OpenVPN. I haven't seen any posts on this here, and it took me way longer than I want to admit troubleshooting this issue because I knew my original credentials were correct.

If you use a gluetun container for routing any of other containers traffic, you might have recently noticed a 500 Internal Service Error in your Health Status and when you check your logs you will find a AUTH_FAILED message.

Solution below:

  1. Go to NordVPN website and log in (using your normal credentials)
  2. Under accounts, services, click NordVPN
  3. Click "Set up NordVPN Manually" at the bottom of the page
  4. You will receive an email verification code, using whatever email you have set up for your NordVPN services. Type this code into the popup window.
  5. Copy your new encrypted credentials for your Open VPN client settings.

This is my first post, please add tags as required.

3 comments

  1. Crashspeeder
    Link
    Thank you for this. I have an OpenVPN client on my NAS that I probably wouldn't have updated for months if it wasn't for this post.

    Thank you for this. I have an OpenVPN client on my NAS that I probably wouldn't have updated for months if it wasn't for this post.

    4 votes
  2. lazerdye
    Link
    Wow, this may explain why my VPN stopped working...

    Wow, this may explain why my VPN stopped working...

    1 vote
  3. Interesting
    Link
    I'm away from home and haven't been on my server in two weeks, but this probably saved me an hour of troubleshooting when I get home. Thank you!

    I'm away from home and haven't been on my server in two weeks, but this probably saved me an hour of troubleshooting when I get home. Thank you!