VPN Monitoring - How to get notification when no link?

[torontob]

Hi everyone,

I am wondering if there is a proven built-in feature to OpenVPN server and Client that can alert me when a link is down? I can use some bash scripting and do ping tests but I don't think that is the best way to do it. What is the corporate world accepted method for monitor a VPN connection and relaying information when a link is down?

Thanks in advance

[janjust]

when using

keepalive 10 30

openvpn itself will try to keep the link alive; it does this using 'keepalive pings' which are internal to openvpn.

there are nagios probes for monitoring openvpn - most larger setups use a tool like nagios to verify the status of the network and VPN; these nagios probes often do ping scans themselves, BTW.

[Mimiko]

Notification is done via scripts run on client dissconect. What is the purpose of that monitoring?

[torontob]

Thanks for input guys. "keepalive 10 30" is great but won't cut it for me. I want to keep history of disconnections and have a radar display at my NOC for this.

I have explored Nagios and I find it really messy. I have decided to make my own interface and first thing that came to my mind was ping test as well but I was wondering if there is a built-in way or a better way to do this.

Mimiko: The VPN connection is used with a SIP Phones so I need it to be up all the time and if it's not up for some reason for us to know and fix the issue before the customer even notices the issue.

Thanks