VPNStatus

VPNStatus, a replacement for macOS builtin VPN Status

Blog post: https://blog.timac.org/2018/0719-vpnstatus/

Description

VPNStatus, an application that replicates some functionalities of macOS built-in VPN status menu:

list the VPN services and their status
connect to a VPN service
disconnect from a VPN service
possibility to auto connect to a VPN service if the application is running
Completely free (donations welcome) with the source code transparently available

Installation

Precompiled

You can download and install a precompiled and signed version of VPNStatus and vpnutil at https://github.com/Timac/VPNStatus/releases.

Homebrew

Alternatively, you can use Homebrew:

brew tap timac/vpnstatus
brew install timac/vpnstatus/vpnutil
brew install --cask timac/vpnstatus/vpnstatus

Settings window

VPNStatus lets you tweak the settings in the preferences window:

Retry Delay

VPNStatus tries to reconnect to the VPN every 120s by default. You can change this value in the settings.

Ignored SSIDs

VPNStatus can optionally ignore one or more SSIDs, such that services are not autoconnected when the current Wi-Fi SSID is on the ignored list.

With the above example, if the current Wi-Fi network SSID is OneSSID, SecondSSID, or Third SSID, then the VPN will not autoconnect.

If the Wi-Fi network SSID is, say, FourthSSID, the VPN service will autoconnect, because it is not on the list.

Note that SSIDs are case-sensitive.

Starting in macOS 14 Sonoma, reading the Wi-Fi SSID requires Location Services access. Without the Location Services access enabled, VPNStatus can't ignore SSIDs while autoconnecting. VPNStatus now checks the Location Services authorization and displays a menu item to grant the permissions.

Hide VPNs

There are some VPN configurations that you might not want to see in VPNStatus. This is the case of third-party content filter configurations like Little Snitch.

By default, VPNStatus will hide the Little Snitch content filter configuration. You can override the preference to hide more VPN configurations:

Timac / VPNStatus

readme