Access Server: SERVICE_INSTANTIATION_FAILED – LOCAL_ADDR <interface_name>: bad local address name or interface is not up – OpenVPN Support Center

Overview

After restoring an Access Server configuration backup to a new server, the VPN service may fail to start and display an error similar to the following:

{
  "message": "LOCAL_ADDR <interface_name> : bad local address name or interface is not up; must be 'all', 'localhost', a local IP address, or an interface name",
  "tag": "SERVICE_INSTANTIATION_FAILED"
}

Symptoms

You may observe the following behavior after restoring a configuration backup:

The VPN service doesn't start.
The Admin Web UI and Client Web UI aren't available.

Service status reports an error similar to:

{
  "errors": {
    "ServiceSet": [
      {
        "message": "LOCAL_ADDR <interface_name> : bad local address name or interface is not up"
      }
    ]
  },
  "services_init_done": false
}

Cause

The restored configuration contains a network interface binding from the original server.

During migration, the source server may have used a specific interface name, such as ens160, eth0, or enp0s3. If that interface doesn't exist on the new server, or isn't available, Access Server can't bind the VPN service to it.

This commonly occurs after restoring an Access Server configuration backup to hardware or a virtual machine with different network interface names.

Resolution

Choose one of the following options.

Option 1: Configure Access Server to listen on all interfaces

Run the following command to identify the configuration values that reference the interface shown in the error message:
```
sacli configquery | grep "<interface_name>"
```
Replace <interface_name> with the interface name reported in the error.
Example:
```
sacli configquery | grep "enp3s0"
```
Example output:
```
"admin_ui.https.ip_address": "enp3s0",
"cs.https.ip_address": "enp3s0",
"vpn.daemon.0.listen.ip_address": "enp3s0",
```

Update each configuration value to listen on all interfaces:

sacli --key "admin_ui.https.ip_address" --value "all" ConfigPut

sacli --key "cs.https.ip_address" --value "all" ConfigPut

sacli --key "vpn.daemon.0.listen.ip_address" --value "all" ConfigPut

Restart the Access Server service:
```
service openvpnas restart
```

Option 2: Configure Access Server to use a valid interface or local IP address

List the available network interfaces on the new server:
```
ip addr
```

Update the configuration to use a valid interface name or local IP address.

Example:

sacli --key "admin_ui.https.ip_address" --value "eth0" ConfigPut

sacli --key "cs.https.ip_address" --value "eth0" ConfigPut

sacli --key "vpn.daemon.0.listen.ip_address" --value "eth0" ConfigPut

Restart the Access Server service:
```
service openvpnas restart
```

Verify the configuration

Run the following command:

sacli status

The VPN service should start successfully without the SERVICE_INSTANTIATION_FAILED error.

If the issue persists, submit a support ticket for further assistance.

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Access Server: SERVICE_INSTANTIATION_FAILED – LOCAL_ADDR <interface_name>: bad local address name or interface is not up