vpn_notes

Using CentOS VPNC, OpenVPN and Network Manager to get VPN services

First enable EPEL repo using one of these links:

epel.repo goes into /etc/yum.repos.d/ - something similar to this:

[epel]
name=Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch
#baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/$basearch
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-6&arch=$basearch
failovermethod=priority
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6

[epel-debuginfo]
name=Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch - Debug
#baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/$basearch/debug
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-debug-6&arch=$basearch
failovermethod=priority
enabled=0
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6
gpgcheck=1

[epel-source]
name=Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - $basearch - Source
#baseurl=http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/SRPMS
mirrorlist=https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=epel-source-6&arch=$basearch
failovermethod=priority
enabled=0
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6
gpgcheck=1

Then:

yum -y install NetworkManager* yum -y install *vpn* yum -y install openconnect*

Then go to network manager or right-click the network icon in the task bar and add a new connection, VPN.

Enter all the appropriate settings as given by work and then reboot the machine otherwise your configuration will not save and you will get an error "no valid VPN secrets".

To connect to a Cisco AnyConnect VPN server, use openconnect as listed above. Reboot the computer after installing the VPN packages and set up the connection entering the IP address for the Gateway.

The ntpd service may not be able to connect to time servers; remember to update /etc/ntp.conf and possible /etc/ntp/step-tickers with time sources that are reachable when the machine has the VPN connected.

http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-connect-to-a-cisco-vpn-with-vpnc/ Cisco VPN with VPNC (Ubuntu and Debian)

Notes from Scalio:

Install the vpnc rpm and any dependencies, if not already installed.
As root, use visudo to add the following entries to the sudoers file without the surrounding "<>":

      <your user name>   ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/vpnc
      <your user name>   ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/vpnc-disconnect

As root, create a vpn configuration file (I called mine myvpn.conf) in /etc/vpnc containing the following:

      IPSec gateway XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
      IPSec ID XXX
      IPSec secret XXXXXXXXX
      Xauth username <your user name>
      Xauth password <your password>

Change file permissions on your vpnc configuration file to 600.
Copy the two attached files to some place in your path. I put them in ~/bin. Make sure you they both have execute permission.
Use the scripts to start/stop VPN sessions. I use this from inside a VirtualBox Linux guest. Occasionally, your vpn sessions will terminate without any notification. If you aren't getting a response from an established session, you can just do "start_vpnc" again and you shouldn't even get kicked out of any remote terminal sessions you have running.

#!/bin/bash
# start_vpnc.bash
sudo /usr/sbin/vpnc --natt-mode cisco-udp myvpn


#!/bin/bash
# stop_vpnc.bash
sudo /usr/sbin/vpnc-disconnect

Old Notes that do not appear to be needed:

http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/vpnc

had to manually download http://pkgs.repoforge.org/vpnc/vpnc-0.5.3-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm since it's a RHEL5 package
installs but will connect; firewall issue?
try http://www.zeroshell.net/eng/openvpn-client/#OpenVPN-GUI-Linux and/or http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=12570
http://pkgs.repoforge.org/kvpnc/