Document Real Address format change in management/status output (OpenVPN 2.7)

IMPORTANT NOTE

Bugs about OpenVPN Access Server, OpenVPN Connect or any other product by OpenVPN Inc. should be directly reported to OpenVPN Inc. at https://support.openvpn.net

Describe the bug

The format of the Real Address field in the management interface (status 3 / CLIENT_LIST) changed between OpenVPN 2.6.x and 2.7.x, but I could not find this documented in the 2.7 release notes or the management interface documentation.

Previously the field contained:

127.0.0.1:53188

Starting with 2.7.x it contains values such as:

tcp4-server:127.0.0.1:53188

This is not a functional bug—the new format makes sense for IPv6 and multi-socket support—but it is a breaking change for software parsing the management interface.

To Reproduce

1. Start OpenVPN 2.6.x with the management interface enabled.

2. Connect a client.

3. Run status 3.

4. Observe the Real Address field:

   127.0.0.1:53188
   

5. Repeat the same steps with OpenVPN 2.7.x.

6. Observe that the same field now contains:

   tcp4-server:127.0.0.1:53188
   

Expected behavior

I expected this format change to be documented, for example in:

• the OpenVPN 2.7 release notes,
• Changes.rst,
• doc/management-notes.txt,
• or the documentation describing status 3 / --status-version.

A short description of the new endpoint encoding with a few examples (tcp4-server, udp4-server, udp6-server, etc.) would make migration much easier for applications consuming the management interface.

Version information (please complete the following information):

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• OpenVPN version: 2.7.4
• Peer: not relevant

Additional context

Issue #963 explains the motivation for introducing protocol/address-family information, so this report is not about the implementation itself. The request is to document this behavioral change, since it affects third-party software parsing the management interface. Other projects (for example, openvpn-monitor) have also been affected by the undocumented format change.

Anyway, thanks for all the work on OpenVPN—it is greatly appreciated!

Start with the management interface documentation, especially doc/management-notes.txt and the sections describing status 3 and --status-version; Changes.rst and the 2.7 release notes are also named as possible locations. Compare the documented 2.6.x and 2.7.x Real Address formats, then document the new endpoint encoding with examples such as tcp4-server, udp4-server, and udp6-server.