A VPN shell script for openconnect on Linux

A shell script for openconnect which allows:

• to define multiple VPN connections, using different protocols
• to run openconnect without entering the username and password
• to run in the background
• to authenticate with a certiftcate
• to check the status of the vpn connection

• added support for using different protocols
• added options (start, stop, status, restart)
• can check status of the vpn connection

This code is modified by sorinipate's repository: [vpn-up-for-openconnect].

And I made the following modifications:

• reformat all code style, refactor some variable name
• reformat all the space characters to [Tab] character, although I prefer to use space characters
• change the path of the PID file and log file, like "/run/xxxxx.pid", "/tmp/xxxxx.log"
• split VPN server configuration to "open-vpn-conf.sh" file
• added "install.sh" shell script

Last modified: shines77 / 2022-03-22

Copy the original configurtion file to open-vpn-my-conf.sh:

cp ./open-vpn-original-conf.sh ./open-vpn-my-conf.sh

Edit your configurtion file:

vim open-vpn-my-conf.sh

The content is modified to like below:

# If you don't want to run in background, so make this false
BACKGROUND=true

# Company VPN
export VPN1_NAME="My Company VPN"
export VPN1_PROTOCOL="anyconnect"
export VPN1_HOST="vpn.mycompany.com"
export VPN1_AUTHGROUP="developers"
export VPN1_USER="sorin.ipate"
export VPN1_PASSWD="MyPassword"
# If you don't have server certificate so don't fill this
export VPN1_SERVER_CERTIFICATE="SHA1-OtherCharachters"

Here just demonstrate how to use this script in Ubuntu server.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openconnect

Two ways:

• Pull this repository use git from here.

• Or download the latest release, and upload it to your server, then extract it.

Copy the original configurtion file to open-vpn-my-conf.sh:

cp ./open-vpn-original-conf.sh ./open-vpn-my-conf.sh

And then, edit your configurtion file:

vim open-vpn-my-conf.sh

The example configurtion file setting like "Sample VPN configuration" section above.

Finally, use this command to install, syntax is:

install.sh <folder_install_to>

Example:

# Install to default folder: /usr/sbin
sudo ./install.sh

or

# Install to system /usr/bin folder
sudo ./install.sh /usr/bin

or

# Install to current user's bin folder
sudo mkdir ~/bin
sudo ./install.sh ~/bin

Note: The path of <folder_install_to> must be existed. If you don't specified <folder_install_to>, the default value is "/usr/sbin".

The installation steps are as follows:

# Your script root folder
cd /xxxxxx/yyyyy/vpn-shell-for-openconnect

sudo cp open-vpn-cmd.sh /usr/bin/open-vpn-cmd.sh
sudo cp open-vpn-my-conf.sh /usr/bin/open-vpn-conf.sh

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/open-vpn-cmd.sh

alias open-vpn-cmd='/usr/bin/open-vpn-cmd.sh'

open-vpn-cmd.sh start

open-vpn-cmd.sh stop

open-vpn-cmd.sh restart

open-vpn-cmd.sh status

1. Please make sure you have openconnect installed before moving on. Follow the instructions here.

2. Download the latest release.

3. Copy the "open-vpn-cmd.sh" and "open-vpn-conf.sh" file to the "~/bin" folder.

4. Update the "open-vpn-cmd.sh" file with the appropiate VPN connection information as shown above.

5. Make an alias alias open-vpn-cmd='~/bin/open-vpn-cmd.sh' in bash or zsh shell. Follow the instructions here.

6. Run open-vpn-cmd to start and voila.