NetworkManager has pretty handy vpn handling for laptops. You can setup all different kinds, it can prompt you for passphrases, it can set up specific vpns on specific networks, etc.

However, if you had more than 1 vpn you wanted to run at a time you had to pick one for NetworkManager to handle and do the other(s) outside NetworkManager. This is happily no longer the case (at least with NetworkManager 1.4.0): It can bring up as many vpns as you like and manage them all.

This weekend I took my home openvpn connection (which I had setup as a system wide openvpn service) and moved it into a NetworkManager vpn profile. It works just fine with my work vpn and now NetworkManager can bring it up automatically after it connects to the network.

So, if you need two (or more) vpns on your laptop, you can now happily move them all into NetworkManager. Many thanks to the hard working NetworkManager folks. 🙂