ASA 5512: How to keep VPN session persistent after a reconnect

Kim Hoang · ‎07-22-2015

Greetings-

I just set up VPN remote access on our ASA and was wondering if it was possible to keep a VPN session (SSL or IPSec) persistent after a reconnect?

For remote users with unreliable wireless connections, they want to have the ability to maintain their SSH sessions after their VPN connection has dropped and reconnected. I understand their frustrations when they have to kill their shell terminal when the VPN drops and open a new shell and SSH back in when the VPN reconnects.

The ASA is replacement of an old PIX VPN Concentrator. Remote users on this appliance didn't have this issue when connected via IPSec VPN.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!

rosaho · ‎08-12-2015

This discussion has been reposted from Small Business Security to the Firewalling community.

James Leinweber · ‎08-13-2015

On the firewall side sysopt connection preserve-vpn-flows helped me with IPsec lan-to-lan tunnel issues; I'm not sure if it also helps anyconnect sessions.

If the SSH sessions are into terminal command lines, using screen on the remote server could help; you can log back in and do screen -r to recover a disconnected session.

-- Jim Leinweber, WI State Lab of Hygiene