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Start the Sophos SSL VPN client automatically with auto-login

Sophos Firewall

This article explains how to start the Sophos SSL VPN client immediately after Windows login and connect automatically.

Info: For this tutorial, we assume that you already have the Sophos SSL VPN client installed on your Windows system. Otherwise, the following two instructions may help you:

1. Remove SSL VPN Client for Windows from startup

When you install the SSL VPN client, a shortcut is automatically placed in startup. However, we will now create our own shortcut in the course of this tutorial and can deactivate the existing shortcut first.

Removing Sophos SSL VPN Client from the Startup menu
  1. Open the Task Manager and switch to the Startup tab.
  2. Locate the SSL VPN Client for Windows shortcut and right-click to disable it.

Note: In Windows 10, you can find the startup settings in the Task Manager. Older Windows versions use a startup folder.

2. Compose paths with parameters

For our own shortcut in the autostart, which we will create later in the registry, we first compose a command line with a few parameters. The command line is structured as follows:

"[path-to-openvpn-gui.exe]" --config_dir "[path-to-openvpn-config-file]" --connect [openvpn-config-file-name].ovpn

So to build this command line you need two paths and the name of your Open VPN Config file:

  1. Path to openvpn-gui-exe
  • For 32 bit Windows - “C:\Program Files\Sophos\Sophos SSL VPN Client\bin\openvpn-gui.exe”.
  • For 64 bit Windows - “C:\Program Files (x86)\Sophos SSL VPN Client\bin\openvpn-gui.exe”.
  1. Path to the OpenVPN configuration file
  • For 32 bit Windows - “C:\Program Files\Sophos\Sophos SSL VPN Client\config”.
  • For 64 bit Windows - “C:\Program Files (x86)\Sophos SSL VPN Client\config”.
  1. Name of your OpenVPN configuration file
Sophos SSL VPN Client path to config file

In our example, our whole command line then looks like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Sophos\Sophos SSL VPN Client\bin\openvpn-gui.exe" --config_dir "C:\Program Files (x86)\Sophos\Sophos SSL VPN Client\config\" --connect avanet@xglab.avanet.com.ovpn

3. Create autostart

Once you have assembled your own command line, you can now define a new autostart entry in the registry.

Create Sophos SSL VPN client registry entry for autostart
  1. Open the registry editor and go to the following path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.
  2. Right-click in the right column and select New > String Value.
  3. Give the new entry a name (for example, sophos-ssl-vpn).
  4. Then open the file with a double click and paste your compound command line into the “Value” field.
  5. Click OK and close the registry editor.

4. Login without entering password

To avoid having to enter the VPN password every time you restart your computer, you still need to perform the following steps:

  1. Start the text editor as administrator and then open the file “OpenVPNconfigFile”.
  2. Search the file for the line “auth-user-pass” and change it to “auth-user-pass password.txt”.
  3. Save your changes and create a new text file named “password.txt” in the same folder where the OpenVPNconfigFile file is located.
  4. Open the file “password.txt” and insert only your username and password. Note that you have to write each specification on a separate line. This then looks like this, for example:supportuser A12v12+$1%4S
  5. Save “password.txt” and restart your computer.

Important: Make sure that the “password.txt” file is really in the same folder as your OpenVPN configuration file. In addition, with this variant your password is stored in plain text. If you are not completely comfortable with this, you should skip automatic login.