VPN Connection question

[NeoV]

Using a VPN connection at work to update a satellite CRM server in the UK.

is there any way, with a vpn connection, to have it auto-reconnect if the connection is lost, or at least notify an admin that the connection has been lost?

Thx

 

[Crusty]

What kind of VPN? What kind of hardware/software are you using for the VPN?

 

[NeoV]

We have a vpn server here, and i do believe it's configured on the remote end to auto-reconnect if the connection is dropped, so really I'm just looking for something to send an email that says this specific VPN connection has been lost

 

[Crusty]

Well, unless you can use built-in mechanisms in your hardware/software you'll have to rely on something else. You could try a continuous ping, and once it starts to fail you can send an email notifying them.

What OS's are you dealing with here?

 

[NickOlsen8390]

I use PPTP to gain windows based filesharing with my 2 offsite game/web servers at my works noc.
If anything happens and the connection is lost it re dials like 10 seconds later.
But if the computer reboots then it doesn't redial and i have to RDC in and start it up again.

 

[NeoV]

Windows 2000 on both ends I believe - the server software

 

[RebateMonger]

For $15 a month, HoundDog will monitor a server's health. One of the things it can do is monitor several network links (including VPNs) and will email warnings if the links are down for more than five minutes.

 

[QuixoticOne]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N..._monitoring_comparison

There are plenty of free tools.
OpenNMS / MRTG might be of interest,
though there are more basic / less capable / simpler options too.

If your server supports SNMP interface MIBs on the VPN interfaces you can monitor their statistics that way.

You can also probably monitor things in the Windows system event log and perhaps see things like connect / disconnect / authentication related events. You can remotely connect to the event data via standard windows networking configurations.

If the VPN runs as a service you can monitor the service as well depending on what software you use.

A snmp agent can monitor traps which might be configured to come from the individual servers SNMP subsystems (you'd have to enable these to send traps or be available for polling).

VPNs often have a "dead peer detection" capability via which they can poll the link status and reconnect or issue some alert / action when the peer is not responsive for a while.

Hardware based VPN gateways often support SNMP monitoring themselves.