Automatically connect to ExpressVPN on login in Linux (tested on Pop!_OS 20.4)

runExpressVPN.sh

#!/bin/bash
#Checks if expressVPN is connected. Connects if not.
#Assumes that the expressVPN is installed!
#Tested on Pop!_OS 20.4 (LTS)
#Let me know if there is a better way to do it, I'm a Linux noob!

#Run this script from ~/.profile, and it should work.

status=$(expressvpn status) #save the response from the VPN
read -ra connected <<< "$status" #seperate individual words
#we need only the first word to determine if VPN is connected or not.
#However, note that the "Connected" message comes with some kind of
#prefix. I couldn't trim it (linux noob)
result="${connected[0]}"

#we only want to connect if VPN is disconnected. Otherwise we will get
#an error.
if [ "${result}" == "Not" ]; then
	gnome-terminal -- bash -c 'expressvpn connect'
elif [ "${result:10:9}" != "Connected" ]; then #removed the prefix mentined above. We want to check if the message is the same, or if we need to readjust
#the script
    gnome-terminal -- bash -c 'echo Cannot determine if vpn is connected. Check .profile, condition.txt and statusMessage.txt files at;pwd;echo press any key to close the terminal...;read key'
    echo "${result}" >> condition.txt
    echo "Full status message: ${status}" >> statusMessage.txt
fi