How to start the OpenVPN client service on Ubuntu 15.04

Solution 1:

Is this why openvpn client doesn't work from the command line on Ubuntu 15.04?

No. The reason is that you haven't read the commentary at the top of that very unit file, and you are calling a System 5 rc script directly. Do not call System 5 rc scripts directly, especially on a system where System 5 rc isn't used, such as Ubuntu version 15.

Calling them indirectly via the service command is wrong in the case of OpenVPN, too.

OpenVPN is a templatized service under systemd. The services are named openvpn@config.service. So you should be starting your /etc/openvpn/myvpn.conf instance with

systemctl start [email protected]

Further reading

• https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/206490/5132
• http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Openvpn