how do I vpn to a cisco firewall?

I have several linux boxes at home (RH, Debian, others) which are all
running at least 2.4.20 kernels. What is the simplest way (other than
Cisco's linux vpn client which is only available if you have a
maintenance agreement) to set up my linux machines to vpn in to a
Cisco firewall (PPTP)?

It was easy to set it up in windows with the MS VPN Adapter. I would
much prefer to connect from my linux environment. I've found a lot of
information, but none of it is clear or it talks about setting up the
VPN on a linux firewall. I don't mind rebuilding kernels or whatever
software I need. I'm just having problems figuring out what I need to
have.

TIA,

david

(E-Mail Removed) (d) wrote in news:7814c413.0309011503.79dd0960
@posting.google.com:

> I have several linux boxes at home (RH, Debian, others) which are all
> running at least 2.4.20 kernels. What is the simplest way (other than
> Cisco's linux vpn client which is only available if you have a
> maintenance agreement) to set up my linux machines to vpn in to a
> Cisco firewall (PPTP)?
>
> It was easy to set it up in windows with the MS VPN Adapter. I would
> much prefer to connect from my linux environment. I've found a lot of
> information, but none of it is clear or it talks about setting up the
> VPN on a linux firewall. I don't mind rebuilding kernels or whatever
> software I need. I'm just having problems figuring out what I need to
> have.
>
> TIA,
>
> david
>

See http://www.freeswan.org/index.html


L.

d <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I have several linux boxes at home (RH, Debian, others) which are all
> running at least 2.4.20 kernels. What is the simplest way (other than
> Cisco's linux vpn client which is only available if you have a
> maintenance agreement) to set up my linux machines to vpn in to a
> Cisco firewall (PPTP)?

Don't think it will work out without the cisco rpm package for the
Linux VPN client. AFAIR, there are some kernel modules in the package
and you need a supported kernel.

--
Michael Heiming

Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of SPAM

Llanzlan Klazmon The 15th wrote:

> (E-Mail Removed) (d) wrote in news:7814c413.0309011503.79dd0960
> @posting.google.com:
>
>> I have several linux boxes at home (RH, Debian, others) which are all
>> running at least 2.4.20 kernels. What is the simplest way (other than
>> Cisco's linux vpn client which is only available if you have a
>> maintenance agreement) to set up my linux machines to vpn in to a
>> Cisco firewall (PPTP)?
>>
>> It was easy to set it up in windows with the MS VPN Adapter. I would
>> much prefer to connect from my linux environment. I've found a lot of
>> information, but none of it is clear or it talks about setting up the
>> VPN on a linux firewall. I don't mind rebuilding kernels or whatever
>> software I need. I'm just having problems figuring out what I need to
>> have.
>>
>> TIA,
>>
>> david
>>
>
> See http://www.freeswan.org/index.html
>
>
> L.

Or directly here:

http://www.freeswan.org/freeswan_tre...c/interop.html

Regards, Joerg.

For everyone's information, I found the following url and instructions
to be exactly what I needed:

http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/howto-redhat-90.phtml

The only problem I had was that when I connected to the firewall the
software created a circular route (i.e., a route is created on my
machine specifically to the firewall address via the ppp0 interface).
I had to remove the route by hand and everything worked great. I
discovered this potential problem in reading the diagnostic
information on the above mentioned pptpclient web pages. I'm sure
there's a setting somewhere that will cause the circular route not to
happen, but I'm happy to have a connection and don't mind removing the
route with a script.

Much thanks to the pptpclient programmers (and documentation
writers!!!) as well as to Linux Journal where I found the reference to
this (p.65 October 2003).

david

Michael Heiming <michael+(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:<(E-Mail Removed)>...
> d <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > I have several linux boxes at home (RH, Debian, others) which are all
> > running at least 2.4.20 kernels. What is the simplest way (other than
> > Cisco's linux vpn client which is only available if you have a
> > maintenance agreement) to set up my linux machines to vpn in to a
> > Cisco firewall (PPTP)?
>
> Don't think it will work out without the cisco rpm package for the
> Linux VPN client. AFAIR, there are some kernel modules in the package
> and you need a supported kernel.