Comment 42 for bug 93413

I think there are two issues here -- the first, that DPD doesn't work in some circumstances, can be worked around with the ability to disable DPD in those circumstances. In fact perhaps it should be disabled by default so that those with appliances with which DPD would cause problems get the better experience, i.e. not getting disconnected after a few seconds, by default. If their appliance supports DPD, they can always enable it, then disable it again if it doesn't work. The correct solution is to fix the DPD feature in VPNC, but since details are currently sparse on what causes the problem, the option to enable/disable DPD is a useful middle ground.

The second issue is that if this option is added to vpnc, network-manager-vpnc won't support it. I think that needs to be filed as a separate bug against network-manager-vpnc if and when the feature makes it into vpnc proper. Perhaps the network manager plugin architecture needs to be able to auto-sense available options for its VPN plugins in some way. Either way, I think network manager's lack of support for certain options is a network manager problem and should be filed there. I'm not familiar with the network manager code, but then I'm not familiar with the vpnc code either. I'd be willing to take a look and see if we can help improve vpnc in this way. I, like many users I expect, prefer the convenience of connecting to the VPN via the network manager applet and I think it gives a better user experience.