Simple Tunnel (Network Extension) Sample Code is not working as expected

Have you tried using the port number for eg: 192.168.1.80:8889? (assuming ur mac ip is 192.168.1.80 and tunnel_server is configured to run with port 8889)

Yes, it didnt work..

I tried with Bonjour, replaced print statement with NSLogs and now it throws following errors:

Aug 25 14:52:14 iPhone PacketTunnel[2929] <Warning>: ######## BONJOUR
Aug 25 14:53:10 iPhone SimpleTunnel[2928] <Notice>: Got an error on the XPC connection: Connection interrupted
Aug 25 14:53:10 iPhone SimpleTunnel[2928] <Notice>: The IPC connection was closed by the remote end
Aug 25 14:54:38 iPhone com.apple.CDScheduler[23] <Error>: Failed to get forecast. error:Error Domain=com.apple.corduet Code=86 "General sanity check failed" UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=General sanity check failed}
Aug 25 14:54:38 iPhone com.apple.CDScheduler[23] <Error>: Failed to get forecast for device plugin.
Aug 25 14:54:38 iPhone com.apple.CDScheduler[23] <Error>: Failed to get device plugin forecast
Aug 25 14:54:38 iPhone mDNSResponder[68] <Error>: Client application bug PID[2929](PacketTunnel) : DNSServiceResolve(ABHINAV._tunnelserver._tcp.local.) active for over two minutes. This places considerable burden on the network.

i havent tried the bonjour.

initially when i am running into issues of "connecting" not moving to "connected" state, some of these helped:

upgrading the to latest xcode beta and iOS9 beta build

Editing the connection list in the SimpleTunnel app on the device

changing the port numbers on both phone and mac,

making sure enabled is on in simpletunnel app

trying to start vpn from settings app

SimpleTunnel is in the documentation archive and, as such, is not being maintained. The sample as it currently stands has some serious problems. Most notably, the Swift 2 to Swift 3 update introduced bugs that prevented the code from working.

Matt and I were talking about this recently and our conclusion was that we don’t plan to fix this. That’s because SimpleTunnel is not simple enough [1]. It’s a complete end-to-end VPN client but most folks don’t need that because:

• They already have code to do the ‘back end’ of their VPN, or

• They’re trying to implement an existing VPN protocol, and that’s unlikely to align well with the custom protocol used by SimpleTunnel.

Thus, most folks who look at SimpleTunnel are really just trying to get their provider loaded, and SimpleTunnel is way more complex than it needs to be for that case.

Additionally, modern versions of Xcode ship with Network Extension provider target templates that generate a skeleton provider that should load just fine. If you’re getting started with NE provider, start there, not with SimpleTunnel.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

[1] I should stress that this isn’t the only problem with SimpleTunnel. A more fundamental issues is that the SimpleTunnel server, running on the Mac, doesn’t work the way that most folks expect it to. Specifically, the server only lets clients access services that are running on the same Mac. There’s no supported way to configure it to act as an actual VPN server. So, SimpleTunnel has all this complex code to create a complete end-to-end VPN client but you can’t actually use it in practice )-:

Like Quinn mentioned, SimpleTunnel is out of date and we will not be updating it, but we do want to provide a code level support route for folks that are trying to get off the ground with their Network Extension projects on either iOS or macOS. If you have reviewed SimpleTunnel project and are struggling to implement one of the Network Extension providers for iOS or macOS and need additional help, please either post your question as a new post in the Network Extension tag, or open a TSI and for additional help on your project implementation goals [1].

Matt Eaton
DTS Engineering, CoreOS
meaton3@apple.com

[1] Having said that, there are a few known ground rules that it would be helpful to get out of the way here now:

• Trying to create a NEPacketTunnelProvider for content filtering actions or using this provider to try and capture all of the DNS traffic on the system is not a supported route for the VPN providers on our systems. If you are trying to do this, please reconsider your project goals or consider a different Network Extension provider altogether as there are APIs for both of these actions.
• Trying to create a NEPacketTunnelProvider that uses a global or HTTP proxy inside of this provider is also not a supported action. If you wish to do this there are also Network Extension APIs at your disposal, such as NEAppProxyProvider.