Hiding VPN Icon When There is No VPN

[mabourehab]

Hi!

I have a custom module made that shows me my VPN connection status and to bring up/down the VPN. This is working great on a system that does have a VPN. Here is the module:

  "custom/vpn": {
    "restart-interval": 3,
    "format": "{}",
    "hide-empty-text": true,
    "exec-if": "test -d /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/vpn0",
    "exec": "~/.config/waybar/scripts/vpn.sh",
    "return-type": "json",
    "on-click": "nmcli connection up 'VPN'  &>/dev/null &",
    "on-click-right": "nmcli connection down 'VPN' &>/dev/null &",
    "tooltip": false,
  },

Here is the script that's run by exec:

#!/bin/bash

testlink=$(ip link show type tun | grep -E ' UP ')

if [ "$?" = 0 ]; then
  status='{"text": "VPN On"}'
else
  status='{"text": "VPN Off"}'
fi

echo $status

This is all working as expected.

The VPN specifically I am using is from my workplace and it shows up on my system as vpn0. Therefore, I have an exec-if first that checks if vpn0 is available on the system. The reason I have that if statement is to try and hide the VPN icon all together if I'm on a system that doesn't have the VPN. However, even when I am on a system where that test -d in the exec-if returns 1 (meaning it's not there), the icon still shows up.

I thought if exec-if is 1, then exec will not be executed at all, therefore nothing will be returned to format and therefore, no module since I have hide-empty-text set to true. However, it seems that exec is getting executed regardless of whether exec-if returns a 0 or a 1.

Am I misunderstanding something?

Any idea how I can make the module not work when it doesn't detect a VPN?

Thanks!

[mabourehab]

I was able to do a workaround by writing the actual check for the VPN in the script, then returning an empty text object if it's not there:

~/.config/waybar/scripts/vpn.sh

if [ -d /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/vpn0 ]; then
  testlink=$(ip link show type tun | grep -E ' UP ')
  if [ "$?" = 0 ]; then
    status='{"text": "VPN On"}'
  else
    status='{"text": "VPN Off"}'
  fi
else
  status='{"text": ""}'
fi

echo $status

~/.config/waybar/config-jsonc

  "custom/vpn": {
    "restart-interval": 3,
    "format": "{}",
    "hide-empty-text": true,
    "exec": "~/.config/waybar/scripts/vpn.sh",
    "return-type": "json",
    "on-click": "nmcli connection up 'VPN'  &>/dev/null &",
    "on-click-right": "nmcli connection down 'VPN' &>/dev/null &",
    "tooltip": false,
  },

Now, the module is disappeared when I'm on the system that doesn't have the VPN, while still appearing and allowing me to connect/disconnect to the VPN on the system with the VPN.

I would still like to know if my understanding of the exec-if was correct or not. As, I feel like the first implementation should have worked.

Thanks!