PCSC

using the vpn with ubuntu

These are unsupported instructions that are not maintained. However, they were written by a PCSC student consultant and should be helpful.

1. Install network-manager, vpnc, and network-manager-vpnc

2. Click the network-manager icon in your notification area, hover over "VPN Connections," and choose "Configure VPN." 

3. Next, click "Add" and follow the wizard to completion, entering the following when prompted:

Connection Name: vpn oncampus
Gateway: vpn-oncampus.bu.edu
Group Name: BostonU

4. Click the Options tab, check the "override username" box, and enter your BU login name. Click OK.

5. Once that's finished, you can select vpn-oncampus when connected to the 123 wireless network.  You'll be asked for your BU username and Kerberos password as well as the group password, which is "BostonU".  You can save these settings to your keyring.

6. Repeat these same steps to set up vpn-offcampus.bu.edu. For more information on the two different servers, please see our comparable instructions for Windows users

Troubleshooting tips from other users

-- About Firestarter from www.fs-security.com...

If an Ubuntu user has Firestarter installed and they
follow the above instructions, they maybe have trouble using the connection.

One workaround for this is to create / edit the
file /etc/firestarter/user-pre and include the following lines:

iptables -A INPUT -j ACCEPT -s vpn-offcampus.bu.edu -p esp
iptables -A INPUT -j ACCEPT -s vpn-offcampus.bu.edu -p udp -m multiport
--sports isakmp,10000
iptables -A INPUT -j ACCEPT -i tun+
iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT -d vpn-offcampus.bu.edu -p esp
iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT -d vpn-offcampus.bu.edu -p udp -m multiport
--dports isakmp,10000
iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT -o tun+

This allows the Ubuntu user to still use their firewall without having
to reconfigure when they connect.

-- "I installed and set up network-manager-vpnc and configured it as described, but whenever I selected it nothing happened...

My syslog was reporting: nm_vpn_manager_activate_vpn_connection(): nm_vpn_manager_activate_vpn_connection(): no currently active network device, won't activate VPN.

After Googling a bit I found out that network-manager-vpnc won't work on a manually configured wireless connection (not too sure why). Once I switched off manual wireless configuration and let it sniff out my wireless network automagically, I tried selecting the VPN again and it worked."