VPN disconnects when iPhone goes into auto-lock ?

There should be in option in ios to "BLOCK ALL TRAFFIC IF VPN IS NOT CONNECTED"

That simple.

For what its worth, this works VERY well for me....

There is a new app in the store called OpenVPN Connect. If you can create a proper profile for your VPN provider then the VPN will stay persistent thru the device lock.

I signed up with www.privateinternetaccess.com for $39/year which was about the cheapest I could find (and they keep NO logs). I then browsed their forum and found a way to create the profile that makes the above app work. This is very easy to do but VERY geeky to figure out. Some VPN companies have their own apps and maybe they work as well but if you happen to be using the one I chose, here is a link to the posts about the simple text edit to create the profile and make the app use that profile to keep things under VPN persistently. This is needed so your phone or IOS device isn't in the clear when it autolocks and you wander around an open wifi area that you previously were logged into under VPN initiated using Apple's VPN switch.

Here is the link for the PIA discussion. Hope it can be extrapolated by those in the know for other services....

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/3848 #Comment_3848

I'm not sure if you can get to this link unless you are a subscriber to their service but maybe searches on OpenVPN connect and profile setup in Google will tell you about your provider....

For what its worth.....

This is ofcourse a wonderfull thing. But it is a lot of mumbo to get it actually working and it only works when you are, like me, a happy privateinternetaccess user.

However once you are connected to their network on openvpn your internetconnection gets as speedy as a slow slow snail.....

Wouldn't it be nice if apple makes the service on the iPhone work, as it should, for all?

I've not really seen significant speed differences. I have to admit that they routed everyone to the US East and I find, at least for me, that the Chicago server is consistently twice at fast. Also, the Toronto one is speedy too. I ended up putting 4 different profiles in for different servers. I don't notice speed losses at all except on my Mac Pro if one of the servers slows down. IOS seems fine all the time for me....

iOS7 has per app VPN access... I wonder if that stays open in the background too? If so - just add all our apps to the VPN tunnel? 🙂

Anyone here have the beta to try it out?

I don't have the beta, but with Apple's (welcome) obssession with extending battery life in iOS7, it wouldn't surprise me if these still got closed-off when the iPhone/iPad is locked. It'd be great to have the choice whether to spend the battery life when locked though and choose between persisten connection or 'only when active'.

This is a serious issue....battery. While the method I described above works great on both my iPad 1, iPad 3 and iPhone 5, I have noticed that my phone battery drain is quite noticeable. Since I'm retired, I have ample opportunity to change the phone but even with that, I wouldn't want to just leave VPN turned on 24/7. While the secuity isn't needed at home, the anonymity would be welcome (marketeers annoy me!) but I just don't want to be watching the battery all the time. I think with IOS7 and the easy control panel to turn off unneeded battery eating services it might be tolerable to leave VPN on all the time but not likely.

On the other hand, the larger battery on the iPad makes it reasonably tolerable. Ie, the ipad seems to hang in all day, even with the VPN on constantly.

Still, as you said, having the choice would be nice. LTE (and my grandfathered in unlimited plan) makes wireless sort of uneeded on the fly with the phone but sitting in hotels and watching Netflix or browsing on my WiFi only ipads makes having it available really reassuring.

Ah well, we'll have to see what IOS7 really brings.....but I can live with what I have if Apple doesn't break it!

Battery still wouldn't be an issue if it only connected "on demand" and disconnected itself after a minute of idle time.

I found a workaround that works using the OpenVPN Connect client which you can download in the App Store:

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/4958 #Comment_4958

This is geared toward Private Internet Access VPN but should be adaptable to other VPN providers.

I have tested and found that the OpenVPN Connect client stays connected when the screen is off as opposed to the iOS built-in client which drops the connection and then does not re-establish it when the screen is unlocked.

Yep,

I posted this a few messages upstream and after more testing I've found it to work well also. The VPN pauses when you go off wireless and resumes most of the time when you jump back on. I've tested it using four of PIA's many servers on an iPad 1 under ios 5 as well as on an iPad 3 and iPhone 5 under ios 6.x. All worked fine for me. PIA support doesn't support this though because it apparently doesn't work for everyone. They are fine with our using it but don't want to troubleshoot for user issues if it doesn't work. My guess is that might become official someday if ios 7 doesn't provide a better path.

Very handy

This is insane.

Now on ios 7.0.2 and it still drops VPN whenever the screen goes to sleep.

It makes no sense.

Same here, iOS 7.0.2 and still that problem…

I see people discussing the problem as far back as 2010. Three years and no resolution. That's a long time to have an unfixed bug. Clearly Apple cares not one iota about the issue. And by extension, those of us trying to use VPNs.

Maybe it's not a bug, but a feature?

Same issue here, on iPhone and ipad. I don't care if it stays connected when the phone is asleep-- but why can't it auto-reconnect when I wake up the phone or ipad? This is inconvenient.