It does make sense if you contrast the frequency of maintenances with the current timeout duration. How often does Sonic do a network maintenance? It's certainly not every day. Your logic is similar to saying that any roof that can be damaged by snow and doesn't automatically repair itself is broken if the roof is intended to be used as a permanent shelter becase maintenance of the roof would leave the residents temporarily without a shelter. Losing your shelter once every few months or years isn't the same as losing it once every day.Any system which does not automatically reconnect, regardless of what the timeout is currently set to, is broken if it is intended to be used as a whole home/fixed vpn solution. Any network event, including regular maintenance, would leave your connection down requiring manual intervention - that doesn't make sense.
There is no "if" for customers who are using your VPN to stay permanently connected to the Internet. Using the VPN to stay connected to the Internet permanently is the reality rather than a mere conditional. Wasn't the whole point of opening a separate OpenVPN server to serve such customers?The main reason that there is a timeout at all is to force the clients to reauthenticate on a regular interval. If we delete or lock your account it will stop working automatically without us having to specifically write code to seek out and disconnect active sessions. Ideally openvpn would be able to reauthenticate on a specified interval to keep the existing connection but, as far as I know, this isn't possible.
What makes the situation so ludicrous isn't even the minor inconvenience. Rather, it's your rationale for forcing reauthentication. It's not to prevent fraudulent access to the VPN account, but to prevent users whose accounts were "deleted or locked" from staying connected. Really? You're so worried about banned users staying connected that you're willing to force everyone to reauthenticate every 24 hours? If my account was just closed by Sonic, finding out how to stay connected to your VPN would be the last thing on my mind.
If you want your VPN to have value to customers, then you should get rid of the 24 hour timeout. I understand the OpenVPN server is still in its beta period, so I'm willing to wait patiently while you make any necessary changes, but your current reason for forcing reauthentication is patently ridiculous.The certificate type and some other options will be tweaked when we deploy the production service.
