About the VPN Machine Tunnel
The Secure Access machine tunnel allows administrators to have the Cisco Secure Client connected without user intervention prior to when the user logs in. Secure Access machine tunnel is triggered when the endpoint is off-premises and disconnected from a user-initiated VPN. The Secure Access VPN machine tunnel is transparent to the end user and disconnects automatically when the user initiates VPN.
The Secure Client VPN agent service is automatically started upon system boot-up. The Secure Client VPN agent uses the VPN profile to detect that the machine tunnel feature is enabled. If the machine tunnel feature is enabled, the agent launches the management client application to initiate a machine tunnel connection. The management client application uses the host entry from the VPN profile to initiate the connection. Then the VPN tunnel is established as usual, with one exception: no software update is performed during a machine tunnel connection since the machine tunnel is meant to be transparent to the user.
The user initiates a VPN tunnel via the Secure Client, which triggers the machine tunnel termination. Upon machine tunnel termination, the user tunnel establishment continues as usual.
The user disconnects the VPN tunnel, which triggers the automatic re-establishment of the machine tunnel.
For information about viewing connection events filtered by machine tunnel, see View the Remote Access Log Report.