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Bug 504763 - vpn: multiple simultaneous VPN connections
vpn: multiple simultaneous VPN connections
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 753966
Product: NetworkManager
Classification: Platform
Component: VPN (general)
git master
Other All
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: Dan Williams
NetworkManager maintainer(s)
: 549797 559008 610855 632104 691063 730309 740579 743520 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2007-12-20 22:21 UTC by Tom Verdaat
Modified: 2015-08-23 13:40 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Tom Verdaat 2007-12-20 22:21:40 UTC
The NM-applet allows adding multiple VPN connections. It however only seems to allow connecting to one at a time. I regularly need to have VPN connections to multiple locations at the same time and thus would like to request the system to be changed in such a way to support and allow multiple VPN connections at the same time.

Thanks!
Comment 1 Aristeu Rozanski 2008-01-16 14:53:51 UTC
Same here. I've created two VPN connections: one using VPNC and another using
OpenVPN. Can't get both connected.
Comment 2 Leif Gruenwoldt 2008-08-13 20:04:57 UTC
This still seems to be a problem with NM 0.7.0

Once one VPN connection has been connected, the other VPN connections are grayed out until the first one is disconnected.

$ rpm -q NetworkManager
NetworkManager-0.7.0-0.9.4.svn3675.fc9.i386
Comment 3 Dan Williams 2008-08-14 18:15:37 UTC
Yes, this is still planned for future version.
Comment 4 Dan Williams 2008-08-29 16:04:25 UTC
*** Bug 549797 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Tad Marko 2008-10-28 04:32:36 UTC
I'll me too this one. I am not sure if vpnc supports multiple connections, but I know that OpenVPN does. I have a situation where it would be nice to connect to a single vpnc network and two OpenVPN networks at the same time.
Comment 6 Dan Williams 2008-11-03 00:51:57 UTC
*** Bug 559008 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 Alexander 'Leo' Bergolth 2009-03-15 19:59:09 UTC
Is this feature still planned for a future version?
I couldn't find it on NetworkManagers TODO list...
Comment 8 Dan Williams 2009-03-16 19:55:01 UTC
Yep, still on the list.  The TODO is somewhat out of date...
Comment 9 Philipp Weissenbacher 2009-04-22 17:43:58 UTC
I would need this too.

My setting is the following: I live in a hall of residence where we connect through a VPN to the net. In order to use certain library services (e.g. full access to Nature) I need a VPN connection to the library too.
Comment 10 David Rosenstrauch 2010-01-21 16:30:32 UTC
Any update on the status of this enhancement?  I'm finding that I also have a need to be connected to 2 VPN's simultaneously.

Currently when I attempt it, NM fails with message "Could not process the request because a VPN connection was already active".
Comment 11 Dan Williams 2010-02-23 23:27:35 UTC
*** Bug 610855 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 Sascha Thomas Spreitzer 2010-02-24 07:54:21 UTC
+1

Please include this feature. It would be great. Thank you for hacking.
Comment 13 Baptiste AGASSE 2010-05-26 07:39:48 UTC
+1
It would be really useful for me too.
Comment 14 Paul Ionescu 2010-08-06 10:25:44 UTC
+1
Can add this feature for NM 0.8.2 ?
Comment 15 Dan Williams 2010-10-19 17:13:00 UTC
*** Bug 632104 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 16 Baptiste AGASSE 2011-02-04 14:35:45 UTC
Any news about that feature request ?
I don't know python but if you need help, i can try to take a look at it
Comment 17 Paul Ionescu 2011-06-06 12:05:51 UTC
Any news about this feature request ?
Can be easily done in NM 0.9 ?
Comment 18 YANG Xudong 2011-11-11 08:11:41 UTC
Voting for this bug. Please consider implementing it; other clients like GOpenvpn already support this feature. Also see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/91389 in the ubuntu bug tracker.
Comment 19 Empire Systems 2011-11-16 04:55:36 UTC
Like many others have posted, this feature is critical for those of us providing remote support to clients and/or employers.  Numerous times, throughout each day, I have concurrent PPTP VPN connections to multiple clients to resolve issues.  Unfortunately, I am forced to do this from a Win7 box, as I don't have the time to connect via CLI when I am juggling the phone with clients lying down.  While my network backend and most workstations are all Linux, I am unable to migrate my core workstation due to this limitation in NM.  Frustrating to say the least; I can easily replace Windows with Ubuntu, Suse, or RH and have little to no compatibility/functionality issues - but I cannot get concurrent VPNs.  Now, the extent of my programming knowledge died with AppleWorks and QBASIC many years ago; and I would not even attempt to guess what implementing this feature entails.  I am however, wondering if perhaps a bounty will help motivate those of you that do program and maintain this package, to add this feature.  I am open to suggestions as to a fair value for such a bounty, but I am only a one man operation.  Perhaps some of the others who have posted would be willing to commit to this as well.  Thank you, and I look forward to your reply and/or input.
Comment 20 Alexandre NEY 2012-01-03 00:34:30 UTC
I also agree with the others, this is a critical feature for people wanting to use this tool in a professional environment.

Any update on this issue mostly welcomed as it's been a while since we heard anything from upstream ;)
Comment 21 Dan Winship 2012-04-04 15:11:41 UTC
it is still a desired feature. no one is currently working on it. patches are welcome.
Comment 22 David Woodhouse 2012-05-18 13:57:39 UTC
It seems that under GNOME3 I can *attempt* to connect to a second VPN, *authenticate* to it successfully, and only when it actually tries to connect does it fail, silently, and also kill my first VPN connection.

I'll grant that "connect to two VPNs at once" might be a feature request, but this behaviour is surely a bug?
Comment 23 Sergio Villar 2012-11-07 05:31:01 UTC
I'm able to connect to multiple VPN simultaneously using the "Network preferences..." dialog, because it allows the user to switch on more than one VPN. The problem is the drop down menu of the network manager in desktop.

The VPN connections should not use a "radio button" approach for the UI because they're not mutually exclusive as wired or wireless connections are (actually are they?).
Comment 24 Brian Mendenhall 2013-01-19 02:27:45 UTC
Ubuntu network preferences allow for 'on/off' boolean settings for the VPN connections as of 12.10, but every time you try to click on any other VPN configured after one is already connected causes the first to fail immediately and the second to never connect. As previously stated this seems like a bug but I think that there is still no real support for multiple VPN connectivity. 

I find it rather pathetic that this feature request has been in bugzilla since 2008 and it STILL isn't implemented. It seems like it would be so easy to accomplish considering how easy it is to use openvpn from the command line for multiple connections.

This problem just makes me uninstall NetworkManager every time I get a new desktop/laptop as it is basic functionality that NM can't deliver. I bet if one of the developers needed this functionality it would be done in a few hours.

So once again .. uninstalling NetworkManager ...
Comment 25 Dan Winship 2013-05-02 16:05:15 UTC
NM bugzilla reorganization... sorry for the bug spam.
Comment 26 Lieven Van Acker 2013-07-30 09:10:41 UTC
Separate from the GUI mentioned issues, starting simultaneous VPN's (in my case one vpnc and one openvpn) seems to work, but the dns configuration is not handled correctly if using the dnsmasq plugin: seems like domain vpn specific dns settings (nameservers + search domains) are overwritten at the establishment of a new connection, and the connection specific dns settings of the former connection are lost.
Comment 27 Lieven Van Acker 2013-07-30 09:16:29 UTC
should have mentioned I'm running 0.9.8.2 on arch linux. 

If someone knows a workaround for the selective dnsmasq dns forwarding configuration, I'd be very glad to hear. Tried some scripts to be ran by the nm dispatcher but there I got incorrect params passed (not the connection specific nameserver and search domain).
Comment 28 Bart Verwilst 2014-02-24 10:14:43 UTC
Not getting my hopes up after 4 years of silence around this topic, but I've been hitting this roadblock as well since then, and still am.
Comment 29 Dan Williams 2014-04-22 22:14:04 UTC
*** Bug 691063 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 30 Thomas Haller 2014-05-19 14:11:51 UTC
*** Bug 730309 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 31 Pavel Simerda 2014-11-24 11:58:59 UTC
*** Bug 740579 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 32 jljatone 2014-11-24 21:23:07 UTC
NetworkManager developers how much work is this to implement? I have no problem doing the coding myself and submitting a patch for this but I would like to talk to some of your first to get an idea about its scope. Its absolutely atrocious that this is still hanging out there =) its only of the oldest bugs in the project along with 5 others that are more than 6 years old.
Comment 33 Thomas Haller 2014-11-28 17:58:05 UTC
(In reply to comment #32)
> NetworkManager developers how much work is this to implement? I have no problem
> doing the coding myself and submitting a patch for this but I would like to
> talk to some of your first to get an idea about its scope. Its absolutely
> atrocious that this is still hanging out there =) its only of the oldest bugs
> in the project along with 5 others that are more than 6 years old.

It's not an easy change, but it's on the plate with high priority. Unfortunately, it will not make it for the soon to be released v1.0. But hopefully soon after.

Patches are always welcome, but since it's not just a few lines it might be better to get in touch on IRC (#nm @freenode).
Comment 34 spetreolle 2014-12-07 12:01:25 UTC
I'm glad to hear this feature is in progress.
In my environment, I need to access a VPN first before establishing a second VPN connection.
Comment 35 Thomas Haller 2015-01-26 11:55:10 UTC
*** Bug 743520 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 36 Lubomir Rintel 2015-08-22 15:11:28 UTC
I've implemented the feature filed a review request. Thank you for your feature request and patience.

Closing this, the progress with tracked with bug #753966

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 753966 ***
Comment 37 spetreolle 2015-08-23 13:40:24 UTC
Thanks.