How to start a VPN connection on boot?

[foxy]

I need a PPTP VPN connection starting on boot (before a user logs in). I have set it up manually and now can start it either by

sudo pon myvpn nodetach

or

sudo pppd call myvpn

but I cannot figure out how to start it on boot. I am using Ubuntu (12.04 but need to set it up on 10.04 if it makes any difference).

[Kloschüssel]

Take a look at initd scripts. If initd does not work for you, an alternative and far more complicated approach would be to configure a cronjob that regularily ensures that the vpn connection is up and in case it is not to bring it up. The trouble there is that the cron script can become a witness of network downtimes and thus would need to handle those things properly. Last but not least there exist vpn daemons around that do both things (see openvpn "AUTOSTART" directive).