Suggestion: Disable internet until connected

[GabrielN]

Hello,

I am a happy registered user of Viscosity, and have been using it for a few months.

I have a suggestion on a new feature, I would like there to be an option to disable internet until Viscosity has completed the connection.

Why would I like this? Because of two things, first, security. It would stop the unencrypted traffic that is sent while Viscosity connects.

Secondly, a more practical problem but related to the first. Adium is quick to connect and thus manages to start connecting before the VPN connection is made. This seems to cause problems with at least MSN as it hangs in the "connecting" state and I have to manually disconnect/connect it to get online.

Thanks for a great product otherwise.

/Gabriel

[James]

Hi Gabriel,

Thanks for the feedback - we'll see what we can do.

Cheers,
James

[jarradyuhas]

This would be a perfect option. I would have great use for this if this could be done

[phoeniciansailor]

Agreed, this is exactly what I'm looking for too. The cost of the Viscosity software would be nothing compared to my relief at finding this solution (and not having to research it anymore )

[rockafinger]

i would love this option too!

[tlockney]

While I haven't tried it and can't claim deep knowledge about this issue, I would think it would be possible to block/unblock all traffic except that going over the VPN port via ipfw. If so, then a script could be written pretty easily to make this happen on connect/disconnect. It's perhaps a temporary hack, but at least via a script it could be manually toggled should need arise. Of course, it would be nicer to have this functionality built in with an override via Viscosity menu.

[James]

Yes, you could certainly replicate most of this using a few simple ipfw rules - with Viscosity 1.3's "Before Connect" script support it should be quite easy to implement.

However as for implementing this in Viscosity, we have to do it properly so it takes into account things like DNS lookups, DHCP requests, etc etc, while working in almost any network environment. Basically allowing access to all the services necessary to establish a network connection, and a VPN connection, while not leaking any data. We're close, and we're pretty pleased with how it's working so far, but it's not quite there yet. In the meantime ipfw rules, or altering your routing table, are both valid techniques you could use to implement this feature in a basic fashion.

Cheers,
James

[rockafinger]

hi, its been quite a while since your last statement regarding this matter.
how is it going, will a release be available soon?

daniel

[James]

Hi Daniel,

It's slated for version 2.0. However I'm afraid we don't have any kind of an ETA for version 2.0 at this stage. We have a couple of big-ish announcements coming soon (hopefully early to mid January), and then we'll be able to turn our attention on catching up on new features we want to include in Viscosity.

Cheers,
James

[Nyr]

Any news regarding this matter?