If you don’t want to undergo the manual installation and configuration of Cisco VPN or VPNC as described here, then there is a good GUI solution in the form of KVPNC. It’s primarily developed for KDE, but it works well with Ubuntu. This guide is based on Ubuntu 9.10. You do need to download the pcf file (Profile file) from your employer. Open Synaptic package manager from System – Administration – Synaptic Package manager and query for VPNC. Select VPNC and KVPNC, mark them for installation and click the Apply button. Once installed, go to Applications – Internet and click on KVPNC. If you don’t see it there, log out and log back in.
Once you start KVPNC, it will ask you to setup the new profile. If not, click on New Profile (Wizard) icon in the KVPNC windows (shown below)
Click Next
Select Cisco (proprietary) if you are using the enterprise connection or select the one that’s appropriate to you. I select Cisco (proprietary). Click Next.
Select import PCF file. Make sure you have downloaded the PCF file. Click Next.
Click the small disk icon, go to the directory where you downloaded the file and select it. If it’s not showing any directory under your home directory, then click on File System on the left, then select home, then your username directory and you should be able to see other directories under your home directory. Click Next once you select the pcf file.
It’ll ask f0r username and password. Enter the username and password you use to login to VPN or your network. There is an option to save the password if you want. I left the NT domain name for authentication blank. Click Next.
Leave the defaults. Click Next.
Check the box Connect after creating new profile. Click Next.
Click Finish.
it will now ask you to enter the group password. If it doesn’t connect to the profile automatically, then select the profile from the drop down list under Profile: option and click connect. To get the group password, open a text editor (Application – Accessories – Text Editor). Using the text editor, open the pcf file you downloaded. In the pcf file, you will see a line with the name group password and a list of long characters. Copy the characters after the word group password, go to this link and paste it. Click the button Decode and it’ll decode and give you the group password. Enter that group password in the KVPNC screen. Make sure your network password is still there below the group password, under password row. Click OK. It should connect and you’ll see a small icon in the taskbar at the top right corner, next to the Logout button.
on selecting Cisco (proprietary) option, and pressing Next, a popup appears “The required daemon () is not available, you will not be able to use this connection until the daemon is installed.”
what daemon needs to be installed ? from where can i download/install it ? (my firm offers no cisco software to download for ubuntu)
Have you tested it though? I can only do version 8.6 do to the bug in the VPNC module.
“There could some reasons for that problem. Be sure you have enabled UDP in NAT settings if you behind a NAT router (if unsure, ask your network administrator). A old bug in KVpnc had set a local port on advanced settings which is wrong. This only happens igf you have an old config from a previous version and have imported the pcf profile file. In this case simply uncheck the use of the local port in advanced settings at profile manager. The last problem is not a problem of KVpnc, its a bug in vpnc (read more here). KVpnc >= 0.8.6 can handle this bug. Another reason is vpnc >= 0.4.x because it has changed some parameters. KVpnc >= 0.8.9 can handle this.”
I was just wondering your results!
I installed KVPNC again today since I had to reinstall Ubuntu for some reason. I used the version (0.9.3) in Synaptic. I installed it, used it to connect it to my work and it worked fine.
For others: You have to have VPNC installed since KVPNC doesn’t install VPNC on it’s own.