---
name: "openvpn3-service-sessionmgr"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "openvpn3-client"
version: "24.1+dfsg-1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/openvpn3-service-sessionmgr"
---

# openvpn3-service-sessionmgr(8)

OpenVPN 3 Linux Session Manager Service

## NAME

openvpn3-service-sessionmgr - OpenVPN 3 Linux Session Manager Service

## SYNOPSIS

```
openvpn3-service-sessionmgr [OPTIONS]
openvpn3-service-sessionmgr -h | --help
```

## DESCRIPTION

The **openvpn3-service-sessionmgr** is a backend service for OpenVPN 3 Linux, responsible for managing running OpenVPN sessions.  Once a VPN session has been started, either via **openvpn3 session-start** or **openvpn2**,  it will run in the background as a D-Bus service as long as it has at least one active VPN session running.

Only one session manager process can run on the system.

VPN sessions are managed via the **openvpn3 session-manage** and **openvpn3 session-acl** commands and new VPN sessions are started using the **openvpn3 session-start** command.

This service is normally started automatically when needed, via the *net.openvpn.v3.sessionmgr.service* auto-start configuration by the [**dbus-daemon**(1)](/dbus-daemon/1.md), but can also be started manually on the command line.  This process should run as the *\_openvpn* user and will automatically switch to this user account if it has the needed privileges to do so.  Beware that changing this to another user account also requires updating the D-Bus policy as well.

## OPTIONS

- **-h, --help**

  Print  usage and help details to the terminal

- **--version**

  Prints the version of the program and exists

- **--log-level** *LEVEL*

  Sets the default log verbosity for log events generated by this service.  The default is **3**.  Valid values are **0** to **6**.  Higher log levels results in more verbose logs and log level **6** will contain all debug log events.

- **--log-file** *LOG\_DESTINATION*

  By default, logging will go via the **openvpn3-service-log** service.  By providing this argument, logging will also be sent to *LOG\_DESTINATION*, which can be either a filename or **stdout:** where the latter one sends log data to the console.

- **--colour**

  This will add colours to log events when logging to file or terminal.  Log events will be coloured based on the log level of the event.

- **--idle-exit** *MINUTES*

  The **openvpn3-service-sessionmgr** service will exit automatically if it is being idle for *MINUTES* minutes.  By being idle, it means no VPN sessions are running and managed by this service.  This can be validated by running **openvpn3 sessions-list**.  If this results in an empty list, no configuration profiles are being managed.

## SEE ALSO

[**dbus-daemon**(1)](/dbus-daemon/1.md) [**openvpn3**(1)](/openvpn3/1.md) [**openvpn3-service-client**(8)](/openvpn3-service-client/8.md) [**openvpn3-session-acl**(1)](/openvpn3-session-acl/1.md) [**openvpn3-session-manage**(1)](/openvpn3-session-manage/1.md) [**openvpn3-session-start**(1)](/openvpn3-session-start/1.md) [**openvpn3-session-stats**(1)](/openvpn3-session-stats/1.md) [**openvpn3-sessions-list**(1)](/openvpn3-sessions-list/1.md)