Running VPN Client as a service?

techomanx

is there a way to run VPN client as a service? instead of an application starting at the windows startup.

my use case is, i would like service or client to start when Windows OS starts and without need to login to Windows machine, VPN client should connect on its own to the preferred whitelist server and run.

currently a user intervention is required to connect the vpn client to the network.

i have configured VPN client on a remote machine which may be required to reboot remotely due to various reasons like upgrade etc, the windows and other required services start, VPN client starts up as application, shows the UI but doesn't connect on its own, waits for user to click connect. i have checked option on client UI to start with Windows. see the attached image

OpenSourcerer

Uncheck Force connection to last server to see if there's a possible error with it. Just a precaution, may not have any effect at all.

Other than that, Eddie cannot be run as a service, but openvpn can. (A daemon is what Windows users call services.)

--daemon [progname] Become a daemon after all initialization functions are completed. This option will cause all message and error output to be sent to the syslog file (such as /var/log/messages), except for the output of scripts and ifconfig commands, which will go to /dev/null unless otherwise redirected. The syslog redirection occurs immediately at the point that --daemon is parsed on the command line even though the daemonization point occurs later. If one of the --log options is present, it will supercede syslog redirection.
The optional progname parameter will cause OpenVPN to report its program name to the system logger as progname. This can be useful in linking OpenVPN messages in the syslog file with specific tunnels. When unspecified, progname defaults to "openvpn".

When OpenVPN is run with the --daemon option, it will try to delay daemonization until the majority of initialization functions which are capable of generating fatal errors are complete. This means that initialization scripts can test the return status of the openvpn command for a fairly reliable indication of whether the command has correctly initialized and entered the packet forwarding event loop.

In OpenVPN, the vast majority of errors which occur after initialization are non-fatal.

Note: as soon as OpenVPN has daemonized, it can not ask for usernames, passwords, or key pass phrases anymore. This has certain consequences, namely that using a password-protected private key will fail unless the --askpass option is used to tell OpenVPN to ask for the pass phrase (this requirement is new in 2.3.7, and is a consequence of calling daemon() before initializing the crypto layer).

Further, using --daemon together with --auth-user-pass (entered on console) and --auth-nocache will fail as soon as key renegotiation (and reauthentication) occurs.

KootchieKoo

There are options for running an EXE as a service:

"InGuardians' ServifyThis program takes any Windows executable and converts it into a form suitable for use as a Windows service."

http://www.inguardians.com/servifythis/

"AlwaysUp runs any application (32/64-bit executable, batch file, shortcut, java, perl, etc.) as a Windows Service, monitoring it constantly to ensure 100% uptime."

https://www.coretechnologies.com/products/AlwaysUp/

Back in my Macintosh days there was an excellent keystroke-automation app called QuicKeys. Similar software is listed here:

http://alternativeto.net/software/quickeys/

You could use one of them to automate clicking the Network Lock button in Eddie, followed by selection of the desired server. This one looks good:

http://alternativeto.net/software/autohotkey/

"You can use AutoHotkey to:

- Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes or mouse clicks, or via COM.

You can also:

- Convert any AHK script into an executable file that can be run on computers where AutoHotkey is not installed."