Bartender 5 Trigger for Cisco Secure Connect VPN Status

I use Bartender as a fantastic tool to manage my menu bar items and one of the things I want to manage is my Cisco Secure Connect VPN.

If I am connected to the VPN, I want to make sure that I see the Cisco Secure Client VPN’s icon so that I don’t hog my company’s VPN bandwidth with non-work-related web traffic. But I still want to hide it if I am not using it.

First I need to create a script in my home directory called vpnStat.sh:

status=$(/opt/cisco/secureclient/bin/vpn status | grep -m 2 'state: ' | tail -n 1)

if [[ $status == *'state: Disconnected'* ]]; then
    echo 0
else
    echo 1
fi

In Bartender, if the return code is 0, it means false, and 1 is true. I saved the script and set the appropriate permissions, then went to Bartender 5 settings.

Under Triggers, click that obnoxiously big plus button, name the trigger as “Show Cisco VPN when Connected”. Then under Show Menu Bar Items I picked Cisco Secure Client. After that, I clicked Add Trigger Condition and picked Script from the options and typed the absolute path of the vpnStat.sh.

All done! Of course, make sure to click “Done” after all that and make sure it’s enabled.