PPTP VPN in Jaunty and Intrepid

[SabreWolfy]

@dmaximos:

Hi,

Welcome to Ubuntu! Which version are you using? Setting up routing under Hardy was quite easy, but setting it up under Intrepid is not that difficult either.

I'm no expert in VPN. However, what I do know is that you need to know the range of IP addresses which must be routed through the VPN. In other words, you need to tell Ubuntu that whenever a request is made to contact an IP is the specified range, it must route that request through the VPN.

In Hardy this can be setup via the VPN plugin (on the last tab I think). In Jaunty, you need to follow the instructions in the second part of my first post.

If your corporate network uses addresses in the range, for example, of X.X.1.1 to X.X.255.255 then you would use the expression X.X.0.0/16 to specify all those addresses. If you use X.X.X.1 to X.X.X.255 then use X.X.X.0/8. You can see that the first one has more addresses in it than the second one, because the first one only has two X's and the second one has three X's.

All of this applies to my experience using PPTP VPN. There are other systems like Cisco VPN and OpenVPN, but I don't know anything about them or how similar they are to PPTP.

Good luck. I can also suggest searching on the 'net for tutorials or assistance with this. I'm sure you'll find something that will help you.

Cheers.

[Major_Kong]

Any fresh ideas to make the network-manager work properly ?

A follow up:
By turning off the firewall i can connect to the vpn network, but i still can't use the connection...

EDIT: Forgot to turn MPPE encryption. It's working now.

[dmarsh2]

What was mentioned before wasn't working for me. I've tried almost every combination of settings in the network applet, but based on some other posts I found one way that seems to force 128 bit MPPE (this was my problem - based on network logs it looks like the VPN server I was connecting to was canceling my connection because Ubuntu was trying to connect with the 128 OR 40 bit encryption). There's probably a config file for this, but if you run gconf-editor and go to system-networking-connections-(choose a number)-vpn and set "require_mppe" to no and "require_mppe-128" to yes, I was finally able to connect to my VPN.

[calebbontrager]

I just installed the 32 bit version of Ubuntu 9.04 and am also unable to connect to a pptp vpn server through network manager. I get the secrets error message referenced earlier: "The VPN Connection failed because there were no valid secrets".

I had been running Ubuntu 8.10 x64 before installing 32bit 9.04. Under 32bit 8.10, pptp VPN literally worked fine out of the box; no hassle other than entering gateway, username, and password. I find it odd that pptp is now broken in 32 bit 9.04.

I have not yet tried the method recommended by SabreWolf. Trying that next.

[zyrorl]

This thread may help for all those with vpn issues

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=964255

(note i havent had to use pptp since intrepid but it certainly fixed it then)

[Major_Kong]

For those of you with Firestarter installed this may be the origin of your problems:

Firestarter 1.0 does not support VPN configurations without some tweaking. VPN capability in Firestarter is currently planned for version 1.1.

http://www.fs-security.com/docs/vpn.php

[krazyd]

I connect to a PPTP VPN regularly, and I've found that the easiest, simplest way is to download kvpnc ( http://home.gna.org/kvpnc/en/download.html ).

You need to get the latest deb from the link above (the intrepid one works fine with jaunty - I'm using it right now). Don't install the one from the repos because it's an older version and is a little buggy.

It has a simple wizard which should get you VPNing in no time

I also gave up on the nm-applet for VPN as I just couldn't get it to connect.

[olmecnz]

So I'm one of those noob users who decided to give Ubuntu a try b/c I'm sick of Microsoft and the viruses that come with it. I've been researching all over the web about how to get VPN to work in Ubuntu. So far I am able to get it to work except all of my network traffic goes through my work vpn. I tried clicking on the "Use this connection for resources only for resources on its network" hoping that I can remote desktop to my computer and have all my local network traffic use my fios, but it doesn't work.

Am I understand that this is a bug or is there some configuration issue that I'm not following. I can dual boot to XP, but I'd really like to use Ubuntu instead. Is there any documentation on this tool? TIA

I am experiencing the same issue. I can connect and view VPN just fine but all my traffic goes over the VPN connection when.

I want normal web requests to go out over the normal gateway...

When I tick "Use this connection for resources only for resources on its network" in the routes section of the network manager VPN editor to stop me being able to view resources over the VPN (but I can browse the web)

I am connecting to a network that uses 10.3.X.X addresses

Thanks for advice on this.

[philtrim]

I had the error (no secrets) and kept trying, retrying, deleting the VPN, recreating the connection, very frustrating.

I finally gave up and decided to do a simple restart, then re-tried my VPN connection, boom, connected first time.

Although, I'm still working out browsing shares, and terminal services connectivity issues, though.

I love a good challenge!

Great Forum!

Jaunty version

[area124]

This has worked for me in jaunty. I had my VPN for work set up and working,
but all traffic was going though the VPN. I used the following procedure.

I used the network manager in the upper right hand corner of my desktop.
Click on "VPN Connections", then "Configure VPN..."
In the Network Connections window, select your VPN Connection and then click
the "Edit" button.
In the "Editing Your_VPN PPTP" window, click on the "IPv4 Settings" and then the "Routes..." button.
In the "Editing IPv4 routes...." window, check the box for "Use this
connection only for resources on its network".
Now click the "Add" button. Note, this kind of works a little funny. as I
added the Address/Netmask/Gateway information I had to click each box as it
seemed to loose the curser position. In my case I work address were in the
XXX.YYY.0.0 range so I used a netmask of 255.255.0.0. I set the Gateway to
my local router which is 192.168.1.1 (pretty standard). I also used the
value "1" for the Metric. I had to click the "Add" button. This was the
only way I could get it to take.

Here was another little tip. While attempting to use this GUI I ended up
with several empty routes by accident. The GUI would not let me click on
"OK" until I deleted all the empty routes. Just try clicking below your
last route. If you are able to make a selection, you have an empty route.
Just click the "Delete" button and you should be good.
Click on "OK", then "Apply", then "Close". Now test your VPN and see if
it works any better.

I use "http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/" to test my bandwidth before
and after. My connection though my work VPN is really slow. Using the
above web site very clearly indicated that all my non-work traffic was no
longer going over my work VPN.

I hope that this is helpful for some of you.
Good luck!