Comment 4 for bug 193686

I got the same issue. (network-manager-openvpn 0.3.2svn2342-1ubuntu4 installed, ubuntu 7.10 "gutsy")

I investigated trouble and found:

1. Option "Edit VPN connection -> Optional -> X.509: Allow server certificate without server extension" doesn't needed when using preshared key. If it unchecked, commandline option "--ns-cert-type server" is added to openvpn call and all things gets broken. If it checked, that option is not added.

2. When using preshared key, openvpn doesn't pass environment variable "trusted_ip" to "--up" script, so nm-openvpn-service-openvpn-helper reports "didn't receive a VPN Gateway from openvpn" and returns error code. I wrote small and ugly patch, which can help authors of nm-openvpn to understand problem and to find better solution:

diff -ruN network-manager-openvpn_0.3.2svn2342.orig/src/nm-openvpn-service-openvpn-helper.c network-manager-openvpn_0.3.2svn2342.orig_fixed/src/nm-openvpn-service-openvpn-helper.c
--- network-manager-openvpn_0.3.2svn2342.orig/src/nm-openvpn-service-openvpn-helper.c 2007-02-28 13:57:49.000000000 +0300
+++ network-manager-openvpn_0.3.2svn2342.orig_fixed/src/nm-openvpn-service-openvpn-helper.c 2008-08-03 04:23:35.000000000 +0400
@@ -340,6 +340,7 @@
   // print_env();

   vpn_gateway = getenv( "trusted_ip" );
+ if (!vpn_gateway) vpn_gateway = getenv( "remote_1" );
   tundev = getenv ("dev");
   ip4_ptp = getenv("ifconfig_remote");
   ip4_address = getenv("ifconfig_local");