NordVPN automatic provider fails, custom official .ovpn works - expected behavior?

[giovanni-cm]

NordVPN automatic configuration stopped working - Solved using official OpenVPN configuration

After several years of using Gluetun with NordVPN, my VPN suddenly stopped working.

Symptoms

WireGuard:

• tunnel created successfully
• routing configured correctly
• no handshake
• healthcheck failed with:

dial tcp4 1.1.1.1:443: i/o timeout

OpenVPN (automatic provider mode):

• connected to various Iceland servers
• TLS negotiation timeout

TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds

The container continuously restarted.

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Environment

• Latest Gluetun image
• Docker Compose
• Proxmox
• Docker inside an unprivileged LXC
• NordVPN
• Iceland P2P servers

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Investigation

The following were verified:

• latest Gluetun image
• latest server database
• regenerated WireGuard private key
• WireGuard custom configuration
• OpenVPN automatic configuration
• different Iceland servers
• tcpdump on Proxmox
• Docker networking
• Proxmox networking
• router
• ISP

Packets were leaving correctly but no VPN tunnel was established.

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Interesting discovery

The official OpenVPN configuration downloaded from the NordVPN dashboard was completely different from the automatically selected configuration.

Automatic Gluetun:

185.234.68.xxx
UDP 1194

Official NordVPN file:

remote is95.nordvpn.com 53

(or its corresponding IP)

The official file connected successfully using OpenVPN Connect on Windows.

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Solution

Instead of using:

VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=nordvpn

I switched to:

VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=custom
VPN_TYPE=openvpn

OPENVPN_CUSTOM_CONFIG=/gluetun/custom.conf

and mounted the official NordVPN configuration:

volumes:
  - /path/nordvpn-iceland.conf:/gluetun/custom.conf:ro

Credentials are still provided through:

OPENVPN_USER
OPENVPN_PASSWORD

using NordVPN Service Credentials.

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Result

The container immediately became:

healthy

All services behind Gluetun started working again.

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Question

Is there any known difference between:

• the server database/API used by Gluetun for NordVPN
• the OpenVPN configuration files currently distributed by NordVPN through the Manual Configuration page?

The automatic configuration consistently failed in my environment, while the official OpenVPN configuration worked immediately without any modification.