ipkg wouldn't cascade on installing openvpn, so I had to do through one by one to install.  Then I got stuck on openssl-util when trying to install openvpn-easy-rsa.

I hate to post with no solution, but I'm a total newbie at OpenWRT and I'm short on spare time to troubleshoot.

root@OpenWrt:~# ipkg -V 3 install openssl-util_0.9.8e-1_mipsel.ipk
pkg_info_preinstall_check: updating arch priority for each package
pkg_info_preinstall_check: update file owner list