Network/Internet Keep-Alive

[reicherb]

I'm looking for a program to keep a network connection alive. I've got a VPN connection that must be initiated by the remote site and I need the connection to stay alive so that the central site can access the remote site. I've found some keep alive programs and they all only work for DUN. I've thought about just using ping, but it's just too easy for a user to close a command window.

Does anybody know of something that will work?

Thanks.

 

[reicherb]

bump

 

[reicherb]

bump

 

[TheDiggler]

Use the Windows Task Scheduler to execute a ping every minute, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. That should be frequent enough to keep your VPN connection alive.

*EDIT* The Windows Task Scheduler is available via the Control Panel as "Scheduled Tasks" under Win2K / XP. If you need more specific help on how to configure it, let me know.

 

[reicherb]

I had considered that options, but someone will be using the system and probably doesn't want a command prompt popping up every minute.

Any other ideas?

 

[reicherb]

anybody?

 

[VBboy]

ping www.yahoo.com -t



This may be considered a DOS attack... Try Shareware.com and search for "keep alive"

 

[Nothinman]

It's probably considered bad form to let a user use a machine that's critical to the company's connectivity for day to day use.

 

[TheDiggler]

Originally posted by: reicherb
I had considered that options, but someone will be using the system and probably doesn't want a command prompt popping up every minute.

Any other ideas?

I just tested this and it looks like this may work for you:

1) Create a SHORTCUT to the ping.exe program (let's call it "ping_minimized")
2) Set the properties of that shortcut to RUN MINIMIZED
3) In the Windows Task Scheduler, instead of invoking "ping.exe," invoke the SHORTCUT "ping_minimized.lnk" (it's very important that you add the .lnk file extension).

The only intrusion will be a temporary Minimized Command Prompt in the Windows Start Bar. Under Windows XP it doesn't even change the FOCUS from the CURRENT WINDOW to the scheduler invoked "ping_minimized" COMMAND WINDOW. Thus, it's almost transparent to users working at that computer. Of course an observant user may wonder why a Minimized Command Prompt keeps appearing and disappearing in the Start Bar.

P.S. If it'll still meet your needs, change the scheduler frequency to run every 5 minutes. This will further reduce the subtly intrusive nature of the aformentioned keep-alive process.

 

[reicherb]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
It's probably considered bad form to let a user use a machine that's critical to the company's connectivity for day to day use.

I agree, but not every company is willing to spend the resources on a dedicated machine. In this instance the remote office has 2 employees and 2 PCs.

Originally posted by: TheDiggler

Originally posted by: reicherb
I had considered that options, but someone will be using the system and probably doesn't want a command prompt popping up every minute.

Any other ideas?

I just tested this and it looks like this may work for you:

1) Create a SHORTCUT to the ping.exe program (let's call it "ping_minimized")
2) Set the properties of that shortcut to RUN MINIMIZED
3) In the Windows Task Scheduler, instead of invoking "ping.exe," invoke the SHORTCUT "ping_minimized.lnk" (it's very important that you add the .lnk file extension).

The only intrusion will be a temporary Minimized Command Prompt in the Windows Start Bar. Under Windows XP it doesn't even change the FOCUS from the CURRENT WINDOW to the scheduler invoked "ping_minimized" COMMAND WINDOW. Thus, it's almost transparent to users working at that computer. Of course an observant user may wonder why a Minimized Command Prompt keeps appearing and disappearing in the Start Bar.

P.S. If it'll still meet your needs, change the scheduler frequency to run every 5 minutes. This will further reduce the subtly intrusive nature of the aformentioned keep-alive process.

That would probably work and I'll give it a shot, but I still don't think they are going to like looking at that. I was hoping for a utility that would run in the background. I think I may end up having to setup an old PC just to keep the tunnel alive.

 

[Nothinman]

I agree, but not every company is willing to spend the resources on a dedicated machine. In this instance the remote office has 2 employees and 2 PCs.

I realize that, but the cost of a single PC would seem to be less than the problems that can be caused by having someone use a critical box for day to day activities.

Anyway, can you go the other way? Have a box in the main office ping one of the remove machines periodically?

If you have any programming experience you could probably whip up a small program that can run in the background and ping for you, run it as a service and it'll never need a window open.