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<\/p>\nAt fifty, I am becoming the Linux nerd I feel I should have been at twenty-five.<\/p>\n
I had a problem. I wanted an easy way to connect and disconnect from Diamond’s VPN. Yes, I could use the Network Connections interface in Linux Mint, but sometimes it expands while I was navigating to the VPN toggle and I accidentally attempt to connect to another WiFi network. Or, I could have set my VPN to autoconnect, as my WiFi does, except I don’t always need to be connected to the VPN. So, I wanted some sort of simple toggle–if the VPN is on, turn it off; if off, turn it on.<\/p>\n
Could it be done with a script? I knew how — or, at least I had the commands in a documentation file I wrote for myself last year — to turn the VPN on or off from the command line. What I needed was a way to test the VPN’s status, then execute the right command based on that status.<\/p>\n
First, with thanks to the Googles, I figured out how to determine if the VPN was active from the command line with the ifconfig command. Then I wrote an if statement off that command, plugged in the nmcli commands that activate\/deactivate the VPN, and tested it.<\/p>\n
It worked! On! Off! On! Off!<\/p>\n
One little thing annoyed me. Activating the VPN popped up a notification that the VPN was active. Deactivating the VPN did not have a similar result. I discovered the notify-send command and created a deactivation notification.<\/p>\n
I created a desktop file so I could call the script from my taskbar. I felt quite good. I had a problem, and I had solved it.<\/p>\n
This morning, I decided I wanted to be able to activate and deactivate the VPN from my notifications instead. It makes sense; that’s where I look for my network status. So I would need a Cinnamon Applet.<\/p>\n
I didn’t need anything fancy, just an icon I could click on and it executes the script. The Linux Mint website has some basic documentation for creating an applet, and I started from there. I took their samples, made a few edits, and gave it a try.<\/p>\n
It didn’t work.<\/p>\n
The problem was, I didn’t know how to execute a shell command from a javascript file. Google again was my friend, and I found a blog post that had exactly the information I needed. I needed to add this const, I needed to use that js command. I made my edits, restarted Cinnamon, and…<\/p>\n
It worked!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I have been careful not to turn on and turn off the VPN too rapidly, lest I lock myself out of the network.<\/p>\n
The problem I had — a simple toggle to control my connection status with the work VPN — was solved.<\/p>\n
No wonder I am “the problem project person” at work. See the problem, solve the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At fifty, I am becoming the Linux nerd I feel I should have been at twenty-five. I had a problem. I wanted an easy way to connect and disconnect from Diamond’s VPN. Yes, I could use the Network Connections interface in Linux Mint, but sometimes it expands while I was navigating to the VPN toggleContinue reading “Coding Myself a VPN Toggle”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[763],"tags":[4846,5140,4860],"class_list":["post-34138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","tag-diamond-comic-distributors","tag-linux","tag-linux-mint","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}