Every six months for the past few years I've been posting how to install Cisco AnyConnect on the latest 64-bit releases of Ubuntu and for a couple of cycles Linux Mint since I was using that as my primary OS for a while.
This time around it's finally downright boring, which is a good thing. No more installing 32-bit libraries, creating symlinks to Firefox libraries, etc. etc. you just do the following:
- Hit your company's VPN server in a browser and log in with your user name and passcode
- Click the AnyConnect link on the left
- Click "Start AnyConnect"
- This will attempt to install AnyConnect via your browser's Java plugin. If this works, you're done! If this doesn't work (give it at least 60 seconds), read on.
In my case on the two machines on which I attempted this it didn't work. The browser-based install just hung even though I verified I have Java installed and the browser plugin is working.
If you don't have Java installed, however, the browser-based installation will detect that and give you a download link for the installer. So what I did was in Firefox I went to Edit -> Preferences -> Manage Add-Ons -> Plugins and I disabled the IcedTea-Web Plugin, which is the Java plugin that Firefox ships with.
I then restarted Firefox and repeated the steps above, only this time on step 4 it detected I didn't have Java installed and provided a link to the 64-bit installer. Download that file (vpnsetup.sh), chmod +x it, run it, and you're done.
I'm a little disappointed I didn't have to the usual dance on this, but it finally just works.
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[root@mostafa-redhat ~]# yum install vpnc (Redhat)
[root@mostafa-ubuntu-vm~]# apt-get install vpnc (Ubuntu)
once installed, type vpnc on your terminal:
[root@mostafa-redhat ~]# vpnc
Enter IPSec gateway address: yourhost.org.jo
Enter IPSec ID for 80.90.171.66: Group-Name (ask your system administrator to give you this ID)
Enter IPSec secret for Group-Name@yourhost.org.jo: (ask your system administrator to give you this passphrase)
Enter username for yourhost.org.jo: mostafa.zoubi
Enter password for mostafa.zoubi@yourhost.org.jo: XXXXXXX
VPNC started in background (pid: 11791)...
to disconnect type vpnc-disconnect on your terminal:
[root@mostafa-redhat ~]# vpnc-disconnect
Terminating vpnc daemon (pid: 11791)