How can I check if either of 2 paths exist in VPN check?

answered Jul 14 '15

biocyberman
21 ●1 ●1 ●4

Below is my i3status config file, which has two unambiguous reports of VPN status (i.e. VPN for OpenVPN, Anyconnect for CISCO anyconnect). Pay attention to the consistency between 'order' lines and the run_watch definition below.

Bonus: I clean up other statuses that I do not use by commenting the corresponding 'order' lines.

# i3status configuration file.
# see "man i3status" for documentation.

# It is important that this file is edited as UTF-8.
# The following line should contain a sharp s:
# ß
# If the above line is not correctly displayed, fix your editor first!

general {
        colors = true
        interval = 5 
}

# order += "ipv6"
order += "disk /"
# order += "run_watch DHCP"
order += "run_watch VPN"
order += "run_watch Anyconnect"
order += "wireless wlan0"
# order += "ethernet eth0"
# order += "battery 0"
order += "load"
order += "tztime local"

wireless wlan0 {
        format_up = "W: (%quality at %essid) %ip"
        format_down = "W: down"
}

ethernet eth0 {
        # if you use %speed, i3status requires root privileges
        format_up = "E: %ip (%speed)"
        format_down = "E: down"
}

battery 0 { 
        format = "%status %percentage %remaining"
}

run_watch DHCP {
        pidfile = "/var/run/dhclient*.pid"
}

run_watch VPN {
        pidfile = "/sys/class/net/tun0/dev_id"
}

run_watch Anyconnect {
        pidfile = "/var/run/vpnagentd.pid"
        }   

tztime local {
        format = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
}

load {
        format = "%1min"
}

disk "/" {
        format = "%avail"
}

answered Mar 9 '15

i3convert
674 ●8 ●14

updated Mar 9 '15

A somewhat ugly solution is to create a script that checks from time to time if either of the files exists and then creates some other file (say, /home/username/.i3/vpn). You then check if this other file exists. I'm attaching a Bash script that does this.

#!/bin/bash
MYFILE=/home/username/.i3/vpn
while true
do
    if [[ -e /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/vpn0 || -e /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/tun0 ]]
    then
        touch $MYFILE # this creates $MYFILE
    else
        rm -f $MYFILE # this deletes $MYFILE
    fi
    sleep 1 # check every second, modify to run the check at other intervals
done

Now you have to start the script automatically, which can be achieved by adding this line to the config exec --no-startup-id /home/username/.i3/checkVPN.sh, where /home/username/.i3/checkVPN.sh is the script.