Your VPN Client can automatically initiate a VPN connection based on the network to which your machine is connected. This feature is called auto initiation for on-site Wireless LANs (WLANs). Auto initiation makes the user experience resemble a traditional wired network in which VPNs secure WLANs. These environments are also known as WLANs.
On-site WLAN VPNs are similar to remote access VPNs with an important distinction. In an on-site wireless VPN environment, enterprise administrators have deployed wireless 802.11x networks in corporate facilities, and these networks use VPNs to secure the wireless part of the network link. In this case, if your PC is on a WLAN without VPN, you cannot access network resources. If a VPN exists, your access is similar to what it is with wired Ethernet connections.
In your connection profile, your network administrator can configure a list of up to 64 matched networks (address/subnet masks) and corresponding connection profiles (.pcf files). When the VPN Client detects that your PC's network address matches one of the address/subnet mask pairs in the auto initiation network list, it checks whether the network administrator has configured that profile to allow (the default) or prohibit auto initiation. If auto initiation is allowed, the VPN Client automatically establishes a VPN connection using the matching profile for that network.
While auto initiation is primarily for an on-site WLAN application, you can also use auto initiation in any situation based on the presence of a specific network. For example, in your home office, you may want to create an entry for your VPN to auto initiate from your corporate PC whenever you are connected to your home network, whether that network is a wireless or a wired LAN.
The VPN Client lets you know when your connection is auto initiating and informs you of various stages in the process of an auto initiated connection. You can suspend, resume, disconnect or disable auto initiation. When you disconnect or the connection attempt fails, the VPN Client automatically retries auto initiation using a configured interval called the retry interval. From The VPN Client Options menu, you can disable auto initiation, and you can change the interval between connection attempts.
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