Apple - I'm using the f5 software connect to VPN, but errors out with TunnelServer already launched

I think I just figured it out.

From the BIG-IP f5 application log, you can only find this from the icon in the menu bar. I saw this line:

2018-06-15, 23:30:54:000, 1274, 1274, edge, 1, (0xfffffffe) EXCEPTION - TunnelService, TunnelServer already launched, pid, 1514

I went into my terminal and found this.

ps alx | grep 1514
    0  1514     1   0  31  0  3552740   4212 -      S      ??    0:22.36 /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/F5 SSL VPN Plugin.plugin/Contents/Helpers/svpn svpn
    0  1515  1514   0  31  0  2473600    328 -      S      ??    0:01.54 /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/F5 SSL VPN Plugin.plugin/Contents/Helpers/svpn svpn

Then I issued a kill, but it didn't take. Luckily a kill -9 worked just fine.

kill -9 1515 1514

So in the future I will be doing a

ps alx | grep svpn | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs kill -9

To make this works for general cases, use the following:

1. Find the svpn process id: ps alx | grep svpn
2. On the result process ID use the kill command: kill -9 [the process id from the ps command]

This should solve the "TunnelServer already launched" error.