Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Using a Cisco VPN .pcf file with Ubuntu

It's Winter Break and I need to log into the Northwestern VPN, but alas - I've forgotten how to set it up and the Northwestern IT website isn't helpful (we don't support Unix, they say).

Here's how I did it on my Ubuntu 11.04 box:
  1. Download the .pcf file and put it on your Desktop or somewhere.
  2. In terminal, run  sudo apt-get install network-manager-vpnc
  3. Click on the wireless icon on your Gnome panel, and hit Edit Connections
  4. Click the VPN tab, and the 'Import'
  5. Navigate to and select the .pcf file you downloaded earlier.
Et voila, your VPN is set up! :)

If you get a "Connection failed because there were no valid VPN secrets" error, restart, and it should go away by itself.