Getting uptime information for a GlobalProtect connection?

[BrankoB]

Hello,

Is there a way (programmatically) to access current uptime for an active GlobalProtect connection?

I need to warn the users of my program well before (15+min) the connection times out. We are radiologists, and VPN dying in the middle of reporting of an urgent case causes all kinds of problems and lost work.

Uptime under GP Settings refreshes only when the window is open - thus I cannot use Win API to grab control's text, as it's outdated once the window is closed. I can parse pan_gp_event.log, but that seems somewhat crude.

I noticed that GPA queries the service (PanGPS) from its log:

Send command to Pan Service

Command = <request><type>status</type></request>

...which returns a detailed status report in XML format!

Is there any way to get the same info myself? Or any other suggestions for the most reliable way to get live uptime info?

Alternately, any other approach of triggering an event x minutes before GP timeout?

Your help is greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

[JoergSchuetter]

Hello

Is there a reason for limiting the VPN session time?

I know this doesn't answer your question, but changing the session time might solve your need as well.

[BrankoB]

Session time is now set at 8h, which is plenty for 99% of clinicians, but not for us when we cover call - we need 16+ hours. And disconnects lead to loss of currently dictated report.

We're getting our Chief to push hospital IT for increasing session time, but in the meantime I'd like to get a warning before disconnection, so we have time to save our work.

[mholmesio]

Curious if you ever found a solution to this? We're set at 12h which is fine for the vast majority of people, but one team is requesting a script to generate a popup reminder when it reaches 1 hour until connection expiration.

[BrankoB]

No, 12h proved sufficient, or at least no one seems to be complaining.

One way would be to have a background process or task periodically parse the pan_gp_event.log file. Look for the last line in file which says "IPSec tunnel creation finished" or something similar - that marks a successful login. Than subtract the timestamp of the line from current time to get interval. If that interval is close enough to the cutoff, trigger some kind of an alert for the user. It would be fairly simple to do.