Start/stop of OpenVPN interfaces with ifup/ifdown

[Andrew Parker]

On Jan 11, 2008 6:38 PM, Jos Vos <jos at xos.nl> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> The Fedora OpenVPN package starts/stops all VPN connections together
> via a single init script.  The classical way of handling interfaces
> in Red Hat / Fedora distros is to support new interface types via
> ifup/ifdown scripts.  This is also the way it worked in the past for
> CIPE.  In some situations this is a much better way to control your
> connections (i.e. being able to start/stop them separately).
>
> I see in <http://openvpn.net/archive/openvpn-devel/2004-11/msg00042.html>
> that some work on this has already been done in this area.
>
> My questions:
>
> -  Is there a technical reason to not handle OpenVPN connections this
>    way in Fedora or is it just that it was decided to stay more close
>    to the generic OpenVPN startup script?
>
> -  Does anyone know of recent work in this area?  I guess the example
>    scripts in the thread I listed above might not work as-is with the
>    current Fedora and OpenVPN versions.
>
> -  Is there any interest in including (and maintaining) this in Fedora's
>    OpenVPN package, maybe just as an alternative startup method,
>    assuming someone wants to contribute the initial implementation?
>

Personally I would like to see this and the mounting/unmounting of
network shares wired up to NetworkManager.  For my purposes, NM
doesn't quite cut it as when I change wired to wireless, I need to
unmount shares, shut down vpn, change network, start up vpn, mount
shares again.  Consequently I have some ugly scripts to do this work
for me, but I would be much happier if NM would do the job for me.