How-to schedule a VPN connection on Synology DSM 7

In this step-by-step guide I will describe how-to schedule a VPN connection on your Synology. I asked Synology if it was possible to do this but they said it couldn’t be done. You can manually start and stop a VPN connection so it didn’t make sense this couldn’t be done automatically. It’s actually pretty simple and i want to share this with you. I even included logging so you can check if the connection was disconnected.

This is last tested with DSM 7.0-41890

Preparations

• SSH enabled on your Synology
• VPN connection created on your Synology
• Create a share on your Synology we are going to use

How-to schedule a VPN connection on your Synology

First you should have created a shared folder. In my environment i used the folder /volume1/scripts. 

Note: When you want to schedule a VPN connection you must stop the package VPN Server on Synology (if you have it). You cannot start a VPN connection when your Synology is a VPN server itself.

You also need to have a VPN connection configured (see example above). The creation looks slightly different than the example above.

Open Putty and connect via SSH to your Synology.
Navigate to the VPN client folder:

cd /usr/syno/etc/synovpnclient/

Note: When you first start the VPN connection there will be 1 file created in this folder; vpnc_last_connect.
Start your VPN connection and open the created file: vpnc_last_connect

sudo vi ./vpnc_last_connect

Find your conf_id, conf_name and proto. Remember these 3 items or write them down. Exit VI with: :q!

Create a new vpnc_connecting file in your scripts folder and add 3 lines. To insert text hit the letter i. When you wrote the 3 lines hit ESC and enter :wq!

sudo vi /volume1/scripts/vpnc_connecting

Now we are going to create a task to automatically start and schedule the VPN connection. Go to Control Panel > Task Scheduler. Click Create > User-defined script.

Enter the following information:
Task: the name for your task (e.g. Start VPN)
User: root
User-defined script (only 2 lines):

Note:
After copying these 2 lines, make sure you see 2 minus signs before “id=”. Remove and replace these minus signs because most of the time they will be copied wrong from this post!
Thanks Christoph for mentioning.

cp /volume1/scripts/vpnc_connecting /usr/syno/etc/synovpnclient/
/usr/syno/bin/synovpnc connect --id=o123456789

Note:
When you got trouble making a connection you could try to add a retry in the command as mentioned by Tony in the comments. You can do it like this:

cp /volume1/scripts/vpnc_connecting /usr/syno/etc/synovpnclient/
/usr/syno/bin/synovpnc connect --id=o123456789 --retry=3 --interval=30

Under Schedule enter the time you want to schedule and start this VPN connection.

In my example i want to start the VPN connection daily at 3:05 AM. Click OK.

This script copies a file to a directory and then gives a command to start the VPN connection. When you run this task it will start your VPN connection.

Now we want to automatically schedule to stop the VPN connection and log some of the information. Click Create > User-defined script.

Enter the following information:
Task: the name for your task (e.g. Stop VPN)
User: root
User-defined script:

Note:
Added the clear command at the end. Thank you quaylar for adding this.

DAY0=`date -I`
touch /volume1/scripts/vpn-$DAY0.log
/usr/syno/bin/synovpnc get_conn >>/volume1/scripts/vpn-$DAY0.log
/usr/syno/bin/synovpnc kill_client
/usr/syno/bin/synovpnc kill_client
/usr/syno/bin/synovpnc clear

Under Schedule enter the time you want to stop the VPN connection.

The first 3 lines will create a log-file per day with the connection information. The last two lines of the user-defined script will stop the VPN connection. This line MUST added twice when you have selected: “Reconnect when the VPN connection is lost”. Otherwise it will reconnect the VPN connection.

Example of the log-file:

Current connection info:
  Config Name : VPN
  Client IP : 10.10.10.10
  Client Mask : 255.255.255.255
  Uptime : 860 seconds
  RX : 170271666
  TX : 8085506

When the VPN connection was disconnected and reconnected you will see multiple connections in the same log-file.

That’t it, you have a scheduled VPN connection on your Synology.