For me, and many others, vpnautoconnect is the only way we have been able to use a VPN with NetworkManager. Apparently, KVpnc works fine, but I have not tried it.
Vpnautoconnect solves for me two very longstanding bugs in NetworkManager that don't appear to have any progress. I don't know why these bugs have languished for so long, but until there is some movement on them I think the best bet in the near future is vpnautoconnect. I have tried other methods, but vpnautoconnect is far more reliable. Ideally, yes, NetworkManager would work. According to some comments in the bugs listed below, the solution is not particularly simple. I don't know if this is true, or why it this problem is taking so long to fix, but reconnecting dropped VPN connections is really an essential requirement. problem 1: NetworkManager ignores 'connect automatically' ------------------------------------------------------------ The 'connect automatically' option in NM has no effect. This bug is nearly five years old (!). https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=349151 https://bugs.launchpad.net/network-manager/+bug/280571 Someone wrote a python script to drop in /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/ in order to reconnect: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=158670 But it is a bit hackish and requires editing to set UID and VPN name configuration. problem 2: OpenVPN and soft-restarts ------------------------------------- openvpn soft-restarts frequently, but NM drops the connection. This bug is 2.5 years old. from https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=556134 > Since n-m-openvpn calls OpenVPN with the --up-restart parameter, > OpenVPN calls back the nm-openvpn-service-openvpn-helper when it is > restarted. In that case, nm-openvpn-service-openvpn-helper fails with > exit code 1, resulting in bringing down the VPN connection. The > reason for this is that OpenVPN doesn't set the same environment > variables when calling the --up script at init and at restart. In > particular, it doesn't set ifconfig_remote, route_gateway_1, > ifconfig_local, route_network_1, route_net_gateway, route_vpn_gateway > and route_netmask_1. additional related bug reports: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager-openvpn/+bug/280160 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/330056 There is this script floating around: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1316314 This works similar to the other script above. I have not looked closely to compare the differences. It also is in python, requires custom editing, is a bit hackish, and gets dropped in /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/ a -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-wnpp-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4d9b8422.7050...@riseup.net
