How to run OpenVPN tunnel inside a network namespace

Linux network namespaces can be used to control which processes should be tunneled by OpenVPN.

First create an –up and –down script for OpenVPN. This script will create the VPN tunnel interface inside a network namespace called vpn, instead of the default namespace.

cat > netns-up << EOF
#!/bin/sh
case $script_type in
        up)
                ip netns add vpn
                ip netns exec vpn ip link set dev lo up
                mkdir -p /etc/netns/vpn
                echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" > /etc/netns/vpn/resolv.conf
                ip link set dev "$1" up netns vpn mtu "$2"
                ip netns exec vpn ip addr add dev "$1" \
                        "$4/${ifconfig_netmask:-30}" \
                        ${ifconfig_broadcast:+broadcast "$ifconfig_broadcast"}
                test -n "$ifconfig_ipv6_local" && \
          ip netns exec vpn ip addr add dev "$1" \
                        "$ifconfig_ipv6_local"/112
                ;;
        route-up)
                ip netns exec vpn ip route add default via "$route_vpn_gateway"
                test -n "$ifconfig_ipv6_remote" && \
          ip netns exec vpn ip route add default via \
                        "$ifconfig_ipv6_remote"
                ;;
        down)
                ip netns delete vpn
                ;;
esac
EOF

Then start OpenVPN and tell it to use our –up script instead of executing ifconfig and route.

openvpn --ifconfig-noexec --route-noexec --up netns-up --route-up netns-up --down netns-up

Now you can start programs to be tunneled like this:

ip netns exec vpn command

Or start a separate shell

ip netns exec vpn command