switch protonvpn servers every one hour

Question

I am using protonvpn.

My servers looks like:

UK#13
US-VA#2
US-CA#1
US-CA#2
US-NJ#9

To switch to a server, I have to use protonvpn c UK#13.

I want to cycle through the vpn servers in this list sequentially after every one hour infinitely.

In other words, after 1st hour it will run protonvpn c UK#13

after 2nd hour it will run protonvpn c US-VA#2

after 3rd hour it will run protonvpn c US-CA#1

after 4th hour it will run protonvpn c US-CA#2

after 5th hour it will run protonvpn c US-NJ#9

after 6th hour it will run protonvpn c UK#13

after 7th hour it will run protonvpn c US-VA#2

after 8th hour it will run protonvpn c US-CA#1

.....

How can I do that?

Answer 1

You could also do it with a simple bash script

#!/bin/bash

sites=("UK#13" "US-VA#2" "US-CA#1" "US-CA#2" "US-NJ#9")
while true;
do
  for site in ${sites[@]};
  do
    echo "Connecting to $site"
    sleep 1
  done
done

Change sleep 1 to sleep 3600 and add in your protonvpn command rather than the echo.

Answer 2

Simple switch script and a config file run in cron or systemd-timer should suffice.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -euo pipefail

SWITCHFILE='/tmp/switch'

switch_to="$(head -1 $SWITCHFILE)"
sed -i '1d' "$SWITCHFILE"
echo "$switch_to" >> "$SWITCHFILE"
protonvpn c "$switch_to"

config file:

UK#13
US-VA#2
US-CA#1
US-CA#2
US-NJ#9

Here is the explaination of the scripts working. There is a config file (put it somewhere safer than /tmp) that contains a list of servers you want to cycle through. The script reads the first one and saves it to $switch_to. Then it deletes this first line (thats the sed command) and appends it to the end of the file. Then it calls protonvpn as requested to switch.