monitoring - Check if a VPN connection is active in Android?

Question

I have a third party VPN app on my non-rooted Android 4.4 device, and want to write a background service to monitor the VPN connection and alert the user if the VPN connection has been broken.

Is there a way to do this? I couldn't find any way using the VPNService API.

Thanks -D

Answer 1

Using NetworkCapabilities worked for me. You have to loop over all existing networks and check which has VPN_TRANSPORT

ConnectivityManager cm = (ConnectivityManager)mContext.getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
Network[] networks = cm.getAllNetworks();

Log.i(TAG, "Network count: " + networks.length);
for(int i = 0; i < networks.length; i++) {

  NetworkCapabilities caps = cm.getNetworkCapabilities(networks[i]);

  Log.i(TAG, "Network " + i + ": " + networks[i].toString());
  Log.i(TAG, "VPN transport is: " + caps.hasTransport(NetworkCapabilities.TRANSPORT_VPN));
  Log.i(TAG, "NOT_VPN capability is: " + caps.hasCapability(NetworkCapabilities.NET_CAPABILITY_NOT_VPN));

}