enable and disable VPN from bash

Question

I have a number of VPN hosts which I need to access periodically. They are configured and connections work fine off the network manager.

I'd like to be able to enable and disable them as needed from a bash script (probably via cron or some such, but that has yet to be decided).

I'd have thought this was possible but so far I've drawn a blank.

Any help would be great.

Ubuntu 12.04

Answer 1

You can install the package vpnc. This is a Cisco-compatible VPN client with can be installed with

apt-get install vpnc

adapt the vpnc.conf in /etc/vpnc to your needs

Set the following information:

IPSec gateway <Host Server>
IPSec ID <Vpn Username>
IPSec secret <Vpn Password>
Xauth username <your system username>

then write a script like this

#!/bin/bash
while(true) ; do
    dhclient wlan0 
    vpnc-connect
done