CSU VPN in Linux

From NetSecWiki

This is a short introduction to using the CSU vpn facilities with Linux. This is a deviation from the instructions provided by ACNS, but those did not work for me anyway.

What you need

1. A working wireless installation of Linux. Make sure that the drivers for the wireless card are loaded appropriately.

2. Kernel support for tunneling (should be already there).

3. The vpnc VPN client software. Any recent distribution should have it in its software repository, If not, download from [the vpnc site].

4. Your CSU EID and password. This is the same login/passwd you use to login to RamPoint.

Optional: kvpnc KDE frontend for various vpn clients.

Optional: gvpnc Gnome frontend for vpnc.

What you need to do

1. Install the vpnc VPN client. (Use the appropriate package manager for your distribution. For example, use "sudo yum install vpnc" for Fedora and Red Hat distributions)

2. Add the following information into the vpnc config file. Depending on how vpnc was built, the config file is either /etc/vpnc.conf or /etc/vpnc/default.conf.

 Here is the information for CSU:
       
       IPSec gateway 129.82.80.2
       IPSec ID csuvpn
       IPSec secret colostate
       Xauth username <EID>
       Xauth password <password>
       
       (Replace EID and password with your eID and password.)
       Note: For security, you may omit the password entry, in which case vpnc will prompt
        for your password every time you start a session.

3. Bring up your wireless interface. Check that you acquired an IP address. Mine was 10.x.x.x.

4. Run the vpnc command as root. On my laptop, I do this:

       kaustubh@darkstar:~$ sudo vpnc
       Password:
       Connect Banner:
       | Welcome to CSU VPN.
       | 
       VPNC started in background (pid: 5419)...

5. Check if the tunnel was created. Running /sbin/ifconfig should show an entry like the following:

 tun0      Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
           inet addr:129.82.18.73  P-t-P:129.82.18.73  Mask:255.255.255.255
           UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1412  Metric:1
           RX packets:160 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
           TX packets:201 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
           collisions:0 txqueuelen:500
           RX bytes:52702 (51.4 KiB)  TX bytes:34425 (33.6 KiB)

 Note that the tunnel address is a CSU address.

5. That's it! You should be all set to browse away.

6. To disconnect issue the command

  $ sudo vpnc-disconnect

(you might want to alias that into something shorter).

The procedure for Mac users should be similar, assuming you have vpnc installed.