VPNMON VPNMON-R3 - Early, early alpha discussion, progress & screenshots

[Viktor Jaep]

Instead of posting all this stuff under VPNMON-R2, I thought it would be better suited under it's own thread for now... feel free to discuss/ask questions/whatnot here until an official release thread is created.

Background: I haven't decided yet how custom this thing is going to get. Right now, it's open, customizable and configurable to be used with any VPN provider. The whole point behind this release was to help those who are running multiple VPN clients all at once - they could even be with different VPN providers. VPNMON-R3 will be able to individually monitor any of the 5 VPN client slots, determine if one needs to be reset, and use a custom list of preferred servers for each VPN slot to reconnect to.

This means you'll have (up to) 5 individual lists that you would need to maintain... again, for those who only want a specific VPN slot connecting to a certain subset of the same servers each time. This is completely opposite from the VPNMON-R2 SuperRandom(R) train of thought, where it could randomly connect to one of hundreds or thousands of servers inside a country.

I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible and extremely user-configurable at this point. There's always a possibility of creating a VPN Client Slot server list builder down the road that could create custom lists based on your preferences.

----------

Some more screenshots... made some progress with the operations menu, the VPN Client Slot Monitoring menu and the VPN Client Slot Server List Maintenance menu... It's been fun. Also enjoying changing up the look/feel of the interface... Continuing to come together! I'll get a public beta out this week as my Thanksgiving gift to you. Gobble gobble.

Standard view:

Show Operations Menu (not finished yet with menu items)...

Monitored VPN Slot Menu:

VPN Client Slot Server List Maintenance Menu:

Nano editor allowing you to add/delete VPN server entries for VPN Slot 1:

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Operations menu is getting more "solidified"...

Timer loop options:

Scheduled Reset options:

Reboot protection:

 

[SomeWhereOverTheRainBow]

Instead of posting all this stuff under VPNMON-R2, I thought it would be better suited under it's own thread for now... feel free to discuss/ask questions/whatnot here until an official release thread is created.

Background: I haven't decided yet how custom this thing is going to get. Right now, it's open, customizable and configurable to be used with any VPN provider. The whole point behind this release was to help those who are running multiple VPN clients all at once - they could even be with different VPN providers. VPNMON-R3 will be able to individually monitor any of the 5 VPN client slots, determine if one needs to be reset, and use a custom list of preferred servers for each VPN slot to reconnect to.

This means you'll have (up to) 5 individual lists that you would need to maintain... again, for those who only want a specific VPN slot connecting to a certain subset of the same servers each time. This is completely opposite from the VPNMON-R2 SuperRandom(R) train of thought, where it could randomly connect to one of hundreds or thousands of servers inside a country.

I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible and extremely user-configurable at this point. There's always a possibility of creating a VPN Client Slot server list builder down the road that could create custom lists based on your preferences.

----------

Some more screenshots... made some progress with the operations menu, the VPN Client Slot Monitoring menu and the VPN Client Slot Server List Maintenance menu... It's been fun. Also enjoying changing up the look/feel of the interface... Continuing to come together! I'll get a public beta out this week as my Thanksgiving gift to you. Gobble gobble.

Standard view:

Show Operations Menu (not finished yet with menu items)...

Monitored VPN Slot Menu:

VPN Client Slot Server List Maintenance Menu:

Nano editor allowing you to add/delete VPN server entries for VPN Slot 1:

Looks like Daddy Jaep is here with new bag of tricks!. Nice work man!

 

[Viktor Jaep]

For those following this thread... initial v0.1beta was released today! Official thread here:

VPNMON - VPNMON-R3 v0.1b -Nov 27, 2023- Monitor VPN Health & Reset Multiple VPN Connections

VPNMON-R3 v0.1beta Updated November 27, 2023 Executive Summary: VPNMON-R3 v0.1b (VPNMON-R3.SH) is an all-in-one script that is optimized to maintain multiple VPN connections and is able to provide for the capabilities to randomly reconnect using a specified server list containing the servers...

www.snbforums.com

 

[kuki68ster]

Hi,

Giving it a try, running without issues so far…

If I don't insert any server in the list, it will only use the server from the initial configuration, right?

Second, I can't find the NordVPN server list, can you send me a link?

Good Work!

Thanks

 

[Viktor Jaep]

If I don't insert any server in the list, it will only use the server from the initial configuration, right?

Correct. If you don't have a server list, it will just try to reconnect the VPN Server IP that's currently configured.

Second, I can't find the NordVPN server list, can you send me a link?

Sure! For which country?

 

[kuki68ster]

Correct. If you don't have a server list, it will just try to reconnect the VPN Server IP that's currently configured.

Sure! For which country?

Thanks

I need for New York (US), London (UK) and Johannesburg (South Africa)… These are the cities that I get the lowest ping from my location.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Thanks

I need for New York (US), London (UK) and Johannesburg (South Africa)… These are the cities that I get the lowest ping from my location.

Give these a shot... just copy & paste results from these into your corresponding VPN Server List files:

curl --silent --retry 3 --connect-timeout 3 --max-time 6 --retry-delay 1 --retry-all-errors https://api.nordvpn.com/v1/servers?limit=16354 | jq --raw-output '.[] | select(.locations[0].country.city.name == "New York") | .station' > /jffs/scripts/nord-newyork.txt

curl --silent --retry 3 --connect-timeout 3 --max-time 6 --retry-delay 1 --retry-all-errors https://api.nordvpn.com/v1/servers?limit=16354 | jq --raw-output '.[] | select(.locations[0].country.city.name == "Johannesburg") | .station' > /jffs/scripts/nord-johannesburg.txt

curl --silent --retry 3 --connect-timeout 3 --max-time 6 --retry-delay 1 --retry-all-errors https://api.nordvpn.com/v1/servers?limit=16354 | jq --raw-output '.[] | select(.locations[0].country.city.name == "London") | .station' > /jffs/scripts/nord-london.txt

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Giving it a try, running without issues so far…

Just had a look at your screenshot... make sure you mark each of your VPN servers as being "monitored"... else your VPN will go down, and VPNMON-R3 won't do anything about it...

 

[kuki68ster]

Just had a look at your screenshot... make sure you mark each of your VPN servers as being "monitored"... else your VPN will go down, and VPNMON-R3 won't do anything about it...

Thanks for the help...

I didn't finish the setup earlier......The VPN's are being monitored now

 

[ColinJOnes]

Would it be possible to add an option for which WAN interface to use for the VPN Slot if people are running Dual WAN in Load Balance Mode.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Would it be possible to add an option for which WAN interface to use for the VPN Slot if people are running Dual WAN in Load Balance Mode.

That's a new one! You want the ability to direct which VPN# slot goes out over which WAN# interface? Trying to understand... how would you solve this if VPNMON-R3 wasn't in the picture?

 

[ColinJOnes]

I'm not sure how to solve it or if it's even possible.

I have Dual wan and my ADSL (70 mbps) needs to be the Primary as its also used for IPTV and I also have a 1GB Fibre Connection and I'd prefer to utilise the 1GB conenction.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

I'm not sure how to solve it or if it's even possible.

I have Dual wan and my ADSL (70 mbps) needs to be the Primary as its also used for IPTV and I also have a 1GB Fibre Connection and I'd prefer to utilise the 1GB conenction.

I found this thread that helped explain how to possibly solve this, but sorry to say, this level of complexity is beyond me.

Dual-Wan Force vpn client to WAN1

Hi all i need some help. Dual-wan in fail over mode does not have wan0 and wan1, however if you disable and enable the secondary connection it goes from cold-standby to hot-standby. So i see on eth4 it recieved ip and gateway from my secondary ISP. This connection is idle all the time and do...

www.snbforums.com

I believe by default, any VPN connection being made will be going out over the primary connection... so if by default WAN0 is active, it will always choose that. If WAN0 goes down, I'm pretty sure VPN connections will attempt to go out over WAN1. This is just pure conjecture... I've never had the opportunity to test dual-wan.

 

[kuki68ster]

Hi,

I am trying now with Express VPN, and I am getting an “error” (don't know if it is an error, the script is functioning ok)…

Check the screen capture.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Hi,

I am trying now with Express VPN, and I am getting an “error” (don't know if it is an error, the script is functioning ok)…

Check the screen capture.

Looks like you uninstalled JQ... here's how you can reinstall it:

opkg update
opkg install jq

Good catch... added this to the Entware dependencies list for the script to look for and install.

 

[kuki68ster]

Looks like you uninstalled JQ... here's how you can reinstall it:

opkg update
opkg install jq

Good catch... added this to the Entware dependencies list for the script to look for and install.

It was a fresh installation… Maybe an error during the first setup...

It solved it

 

[Viktor Jaep]

It was a fresh installation… Maybe an error during the first setup...

More like an error on my part for not including it with the script install.

It solved it

Whooo!