When is the Last Time You Booted to Windows? - VPNC usage

[John Wendel]

Jeff Vian wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 11:23 -0800, John Wendel wrote:
> 
>>Scot L. Harris wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 2006-02-16 at 12:39 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I have a laptop that is on Windows for the sole reason of running the
>>>>cisco vpn client, and to access a web site that only accepts the IE
>>>>browser to enter time for one admin position I hold.
>>>>
>>>>If anyone knows how I can get past these two blocks I will be M$ free
>>>>again (as I had been for 2 years, until the last 3 months).  
>>>
>>>
>>>There is a cisco vpn client for linux.  Run that for work all the time.
>>>
>>>Check their web site for the software or ask you IT group for it.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I'm using "vpnc" to talk to a Cisco VPN server. Works fine here.
>>
> 
> Is there anything special you needed to set up?  I have vpnc installed
> but have not tried it.  
> The VPN server I connect to uses ipsec and the profile was sent to me so
> I don't know exactly what/how to tweak it.
> 
> 
>>Regards,
>>
>>John
>>
> 
> 

To be honest, I installed vpnc using yum and it didn't work. So, I got 
the tar file from the website, built it, and things were happy. My 
files ended up in usr/local because of the self install. Your mileage 
may vary, this was on an FC3 system. There are NO kernel modules to 
mess with, so you don't need to do anything when you upgrade the kernel.

You might also try kvpnc if you're a KDE user, it is a friendly front 
end for vpnc. I don't use it.

The official website : <http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/%7Emassar/vpnc/>

If your profile contains an "encrypted" group password, the website 
will let  you "decrypt" it, the vpnc config file needs the unencrypted 
group password.

You need a configuration file for vpnc, mine is installed in 
/etc/vpnc/vpnc.conf. All the info needed is in the Cisco profile.

Mine looks like the following (only 4 lines of text), replace the xxx 
with real values (of course).

"gateway" is the VPN sever IP address. "ID" is the GroupName. "secret" 
is the GroupPwd.


IPSec gateway xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
IPSec ID xxxxx
IPSec secret xxxxxxxxx
Xauth username jwendel


I also made a couple of scripts that I run to start and stop the vpn. 
The web will explain how to to this the sophisticated way with PAM, 
but I'm too slow so I did it the hard way.

script 1 called "vpncstart"

sudo /usr/local/sbin/vpnc-connect

script 2 called "vpncstop"

sudo /usr/local/sbin/vpnc-disconnect

Regards,

John