VPN autoconnect in the VPN settings.
Hi! I would like to propose adding "Connect automatically to VPN" in the VPN setting. The core reasoning is that there are (as far as I can reason, please "pinch of salt" here) two sets of users for VPN's. One is the person spoofing an origin to be able to access content from areas where that content is blocked and the other is privacy minded users. Of that last group there are two subsets (again, my reasoning, "pinch of salt" no research thoroughly conducted) those who temporarily need that privacy on public wifi's in coffee shops or libraries or airports, and those who want it turned on at all times (the last being my group).
There is a method where you can start the OLD network manager via terminal with "nm-connection-editor" to autoconnect to a VPN, that I learned from when asking around on the GNOME subreddit, but I feel that that is an unnecessarily complex method.
What I propose is that in VPN settings under "Network" you click the cogwheel and under "details" the first tab that shows up you have a tick box for "Automatically Connect to this VPN". If the user have several VPN's and another VPN is already ticked in an informative text under the main text of the tick box could say "By settings this VPN to autoconnect VPN "BananaVPN 3 will stop autoconnecting" or similar.
The reasoning for this is that a user who sets up a VPN need already to jump through quite a lot of hoops as it is, and so would feel comfortable with digging into the settings a bit deeper - but the skip from that to "start nm-connections-editor in a terminal" may be a leap too far.
Current Method to autoconnect:
- Start the old networkmanager in a terminal or via command with "nm-connection-editor"
- Click on the wifi connection you use or want to use with a VPN
- Click the Cogwheel for settings
- In the first tab you can set it to autoconnect to a VPN via a dropdown.
Suggested Method to autoconnect:
- Start system settings,
- Go to Networks
- Click the cogwheel for the VPN
- Set it to autoconnect under the first tab, "details"
NOTE: I have in my experience run into a few issues with Wifi autoconnections and VPN autoconnections, so I want to add this here that it MAY be that the feature was moved because of a technical issue. I haven't found anything directly linking to that and haven't been able to safely and clearly reproduce the bug but I feel I would be remiss if I didn't add this notation at least.
Tagging: @bertob
Proposed Mockup (sry for Swedish and cobbled together GIMP image):