How to get Proton VPN IPv6 working with OpenVPN on openSUSE tumbleweed

I want to make my computer connect to Proton VPN on boot. I also experienced problems with my ISP’s IPv6 address being used even though I was connected to Proton VPN through OpenVPN. This post will explain how I got it working to use IPv6 through Proton.

Start by installing OpenVPN:

sudo zypper install openvpn

sudo zypper install openvpn

Go to https://account.protonvpn.com/downloads#openvpn-configuration-files and download a config file for the server you want to use.

Note: I’m not sure if all Proton VPN servers support IPv6 at the moment, so you may need to try a different server if it doesn’t work.

Copy the downloaded config file to the OpenVPN directory

sudo cp /path/to/config.ovpn /etc/openvpn/client/proton.conf

sudo cp /path/to/config.ovpn /etc/openvpn/client/proton.conf

Go to https://account.protonvpn.com/account-password#openvpn to get your OpenVPN/IKEv2 username

Create an auth file alongside your config file and enter the username and password on separate lines:

sudo vim /etc/openvpn/client/proton.auth

sudo vim /etc/openvpn/client/proton.auth

Edit the Proton OpenVPN config to enable IPv6

sudo vim /etc/openvpn/client/proton.conf

sudo vim /etc/openvpn/client/proton.conf

Inside this file add the following line to enable authentication using the username and password from the auth file:

auth-user-pass /etc/openvpn/client/proton.auth

auth-user-pass /etc/openvpn/client/proton.auth

Note: you may already have an auth-user-pass line – in this case replace it with the above.

To enable IPv6 support add:

push-peer-info
setenv UV_IPV6 1 

push-peer-info
setenv UV_IPV6 1 

Set up a systemd service (change vim to whatever text editor you like).

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/protonvpn.service

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/protonvpn.service

Edit the the systemd service config file and insert the following

[Unit]
Description=ProtonVPN Connection
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/client/proton.conf
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

[Unit]
Description=ProtonVPN Connection
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/openvpn --config /etc/openvpn/client/proton.conf
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable and start the service

sudo systemctl enable protonvpn
sudo systemctl start protonvpn

sudo systemctl enable protonvpn
sudo systemctl start protonvpn

Check your IP is not being leaked using https://whatismyipaddress.com/ or a similar site. It should show the VPN’s IP address.

You can also use https://dnsleaktest.com/ to verify your DNS requests are all going through Proton too.