the .ovpn files from http://www.vpngate.net do not come with separated .certs and .key files, which are necessary to import them with nm-applet. nm-applet is the little GUI network manager tool in the system tray of debian and other Linuces. Now, the trick is simply to open, say, the downloaded vpngate_60.86.245.141_udp_1456.ovpn with a text editor and extract the 3 ASCII sections into 3 separate text files: ca.crt (changes like daily) user.crt user.key That's it ! Now import the .oVPN file from nm-applet GUI (add vpn ... from menu , create vpn with .ovpn-file etc.) and set those 3 certs and key. save it & you are good to go! This is the same procedure, incidentally, which you follow to set up an AirVPN, except these ship with crt & key separated already.