This may sound dumb but for my information, could you please let me know what a VPN is.
Thanks, Christina On Sep 29, 2009, at 2:34 PM, Donal Fitzpatrick wrote: > > Hi all, > > Ok I've been playing around with two VPN clients since I raised this > topic about a month ago. The two clients I've looked at are > Tunnelblick and Viscosity. In case anyone needs to use a VPN, my > thoughts on both are given below. > > 1. Viscosity. I chose this one first because, as Esther said at the > time this topic was discussed, it supports applescript. The > installation for this application follows standard OSX conventions, > and creates no problems with VO whatsoever. > > The application is not very accessible in the typical sense of the > word. It uses a status menu (NSStatusItem which it locates in the > vicinity of time machine, and the other Extra menu items Apple use. > Problems with such status menus are well documented here and on other > lists so I won't delve into that again. However, suffice it to say > that because the status menu is inaccessible, it precludes getting to > the menu items, preferences dialog and other aspects of the software. > I did ask a sighted colleague to open the preferences dialog for me, > and it was navigable, but not easily so. > > I mentioned earlier that Viscosity does support applescript. One can > easily create scripts to connect to, and disconnect from the VPN. > This feature makes the application usable. Finally, I'd like to > acknowledge the developer of this application. During an email > exchange, he acknowledged that the app could do with some work, and > also succinctly explained the issues with the NSStatusItem. He has > told me that he and other developers have been on to Apple regarding > this issue, and await their response. > > 2. Tunnelblick. This application is very similar to Viscosity > described above. However, it is an opensource project, and as such > the source code is available. Once again, the installation process is > no problem. However, the same issues regarding NSStatusItems emerge; > that is, it creates one which cannot be reached using VO. A little > digging on the TunnelBlick wiki produced documentation on the > preferences, which can be found in a ".plist" file located in "~/ > library/preferences". Editing this file in the normal way, (using > some educated guesswork) I could actually configure the application to > both start wen I logged on, and also to automatically connect to the > VPN thereby negating the need to go near the inaccessible status menu. > > Finally on this application, while it does not, to the best of my > knowledge support applescript, it does come with a command-line > interface called openvpnstart. One has to drill down into the > application package (using terminal) to run this app. Also, root > privileges seem to be required to run it. However, this can be > scripted using the usual shell-scripts and this approach also works > quite well. > > So in summary, the two clients I've looked at are inaccessible in one > sense, but are in fact usable with a little tweaking and > experimentation. > > I hope this helps people, and might just save some time for others in > the future. > > Cheers, > > Donal > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
