Script logon to a 'Cisco' VPN in windows

Question

I would like to sync my development database with actual data from the production databases on a regular basis (say, weekly). I already have the scripts to do this, and the amount of data is not huge.

The problem is that we access the client network through a VPN, so at the moment I have to manually connect (using the cisco vpn client), run the sync, and then disconnect.

Is there anyway to have this done through a script, so that I can set the whole thing up on a schedule and forget about it?

Answer 1

If you're using the older IPSec Cisco VPN Client, you can use %ProgramFiles%\Cisco Systems\VPN Client\vpnclient.exe (or vpnclient on Linux, etc.):

Usage:
 vpnclient connect <profile> [user <username>] [eraseuserpwd | pwd <password>]
                             [nocertpwd] [cliauth] [stdin] [sd]
 vpnclient disconnect
 vpnclient stat [reset] [traffic] [tunnel] [route] [firewall] [repeat]
 vpnclient notify
 vpnclient verify [autoinitconfig]
 vpnclient suspendfw
 vpnclient resumefw

Answer 2

If you are using AnyConnect as the client there is a file in the program folder called vpncli.exe. Use the /? switch to check usage. I assume that their other clients have something similar. This should do it for you.