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What is best way to install a Cisco VPN client application in Ubuntu?

nhinkle
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moata_u
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  • Which client are we talking about here? VPNC? AnyConnect? Or the network-manager-vpnc plug-in? Or are you asking "what clients are available?" in which case, I might just have answered you in this comment... – Scaine Mar 19 '11 at 19:52
  • am not sure ..the configuration that i have , `name, password ,Authentication Type: Group Authentication,Transport Type: IPSec over UDP,Public IP address` , normally i install Cisco vpn client application and add the configuration in windows BUT now am using ubuntu which application should i use ?? – moata_u Mar 19 '11 at 20:53

4 Answers4

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You need to install network-manager-vpnc, then configure it through network manager.

sudo apt-get install network-manager-vpnc

That will install vpnc, network-manager-vpnc and network-manager-vpnc-gnome.

Now LEFT click on your network manager applet :

Network Manager

And choose "Configure VPN...", then click "Add" and drop the menu to "Cisco Compatible VPN".

VPN Configureation

And enter your details. To start your VPN, just follow the steps again, but instead of "Configure VPN", you'll click on the entry you created.

Scaine
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  • i experienced strange "restart your pc to make authentication work" problem with this. If it says "wrong authentification just try to restart your pc". – aatdark Mar 19 '11 at 22:34
  • vpn connection failed...i tried make restart many times....same issue.... – moata_u Mar 20 '11 at 06:12
  • should i install cisco certificate...encryption method should be the same ..... – moata_u Mar 20 '11 at 06:36
  • You can also do a "sudo killall NetworkManager" instead of a full reboot. – Dennis Hostetler Apr 08 '11 at 01:10
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    also if your administrator gives you a .pcf file (or you can find it on a windows machine), you can just hit import and all your connection details will get filled in automagically. – Eric Johnson May 05 '11 at 16:45
  • After I installing network-manager-vpnc, my connection type still only supports PPTP VPN. I am using Ubuntu 16.04 – Jay Wang Aug 12 '16 at 07:20
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    @JayWong I had to manually `sudo apt install network-manager-vpnc-gnome` for it to show up in the GUI. – FriendFX Jun 07 '17 at 06:21
  • If you don't have a **group password**, after you click on **Add VPN**, you should choose **Cisco AnyConnect Compatible VPN(openconnect)** instead of **Cisco Compatible VPN (vpnc)**. – ROMANIA_engineer Dec 23 '17 at 08:20
  • Currently using Ubuntu 20 and I also had to manually do what @FriendFX said `sudo apt install network-manager-vpnc-gnome` – Ian May 02 '22 at 11:42
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There seems to be a problem on 16.04 with Cisco VPN when installing only network-manager-vpnc. Option for Cisco VPN simply doesn't show in the list.

Another solution is to install

sudo apt-get install openconnect network-manager-openconnect-gnome

then restart network manager. Unfortunately I am unable to provide auth details.

Last but not least is to do this by manually adding file to /etc/vpnc and running it through vpnc command, this one should work, more about it here: https://www.debuntu.org/how-to-connect-to-a-cisco-vpn-with-vpnc/

edit: I probably missed installing something, this works for GUI version:

sudo apt-get install network-manager-vpnc network-manager-vpnc-gnome
Darek Deoniziak
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Btw, as a performance tip after successfully installing following Scaine's answer, you might also want to enable the option to only use the VPN connection for resources on its network.

Marius Butuc
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  • good advice, another is to check that the NAT transversal is correct, for my place of work I need to use "cisco-UDP". another one is set up local routes (e.g. 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0) to use the local gateway (e.g. 192.168.1.254) (this is important to print in local network printers). – alfC Nov 07 '11 at 06:24
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There is also another way to use Cisco VPN installing kvpnc which is a vpn client for different vpn; I used it and it is quite simple to use. It is available directly in the Ubuntu Software Center:

https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/natty/kvpnc/

heiko81
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