Connecting VPN on Ubuntu

Sometimes, to insure a service's quality stated on a Service Level Agreement, one has to do interventions on the systems at any given hour of the day. Even late at night, or on holidays.

Given the possibility of connecting to my Workplace´s network through VPN, I faced the challenge of configuring a VPN network client on Ubuntu Linux (9.10). Our communications staff had a ready to use setup for Windows, but that didn't help much. So I took the exported Cisco PCF file and got engaged on this task.

Overall, it wasn't as tricky as I would expect. I performed the following steps:

1. Open the Synaptic Package Manager


2. Selected the following packages: vpnc, network-manager-vpnc, KVpnc


3. Apply the changes

Having finished the installation:

1. Go to the Application menu, select Internet/KVpnc


2. Start the new connection wizard and import the pcf file


3. Save your new profile


4. Connect and ... that's it!

I tried to import the pcf file directly, without using the wizard and it didn't work. Anyway, when your VPN connection is active, open a terminal window and run the command "ifconfig". Your VPN tunnel should be listed on the active connections.