Have you tried changing the port for the VPN to something other than 22? ssh uses port 22 (unless you changed the port for ssh).

Try eliminating the possibility of a port 22 conflict.

I,

I've added port 222 to the sshd daemon, and now I can connect to the linode machine on port 222 (an maintained the 22 active, should I disable it?).

But even connected through port 222 when i try to activate the openvpn client it hangs… and I can't connect again, either through ports 22 or 222…

I'll ask the administrator of the openvpn server if it's possible to change it to another port… But I'm not in control of the server…

But it's strange that in a non linode machine it works without hanging….

So I'll try to disable por 22 in the sshd configs (leaving only 222 active) and hope the openvpn server admin can change the port.

Thanks for helping.

On the server side I cannot change the port.. it must be 22….

The strange thing is that I completely loose access to the linode machine… not even ping works…

Could it be that the default route is changed when the openvpn clinet starts and that can cause this kind of issues?

Thanks

Your route is probably changing, what's the output of route -n after you start openvpn (you can connect via lish). If it's changing you can add a new route using an openvpn up script.