[SOLVED] Cisco sucks...

[ukchucktown]

I was relying on Cisco Anyconnect under Jaunty 32-bit. I was planning on a native 64-bit install but so far Anyconnect does not work on 64-bit Karmic. I can't use VPNC, it's IPsec. This kinda sucks, I may be forced to stick with 32-bit Karmic unless somebody can think of a workaround. The old workaround under Jaunty 64-bit of installing 32-bit Firefox (3.5 in my case) and copying the libs didn't work. Oh well, 32-bit for me.

[ukchucktown]

Re: Cisco sucks...

I did some more testing and it's also not working on 32-bit Karmic under a virtual machine. I found some errors in the logs, pasted below. I observed the same errors in my 64-bit tests. It might be a missing package or maybe the virtual environment - VirtualBox 3.0.8. I have tested successfully under a Windows 2008 VM. I also tried the open source variant, openconnect, without much success. There might be a few of us using Anyconnect, probably not many. I'm stuck on it for work reasons.

ct 27 04:31:07 grant-kubuntu vpn: [p:2556 pp:1985]: error - ConnectIfc.cpp:362 (fe01002e) ConnectIfc::connect Send request to peer failed
Oct 27 04:31:07 grant-kubuntu vpn: [p:2556 pp:1985]: error - ConnectIfc.cpp:2953 (fe01002e) ConnectIfc::TranslateStatusCode timeout
Oct 27 04:31:07 grant-kubuntu vpn: [p:2556 pp:1985]: error - ConnectMgr.cpp:869 (fe01002e) ConnectIfc::connect
Oct 27 04:31:07 grant-kubuntu vpn: [p:2556 pp:1985]: error - ConnectMgr.cpp:1002 (fe000009) ConnectMgr :: processIfcData Unrecognized content type (Unknown) received.
Oct 27 04:31:07 grant-kubuntu vpn: [p:2556 pp:1985]: error - ConnectMgr.cpp:1024 (fe000009) ConnectMgr :: processIfcData Unable to process response from remote.icfi.com.
Oct 27 04:31:07 grant-kubuntu vpn: [p:2556 pp:1985]: error - ConnectMgr.cpp:1078 (fe000009) processIfcData Unable to contact remote.icfi.com.

[ukchucktown]

Re: Cisco sucks...

I decided to try 64-bit again after my failed 32-bit tests. The old 64-bit trick was installing some missing libraries and creating symbolic links under the /opt/cisco/vpn/lib directory. I tried the old workaround without much success on 32-bit and 64-bit Karmic. Here come's the interesting part: I installed the latest Opera browser then tried with it. It works but only from Opera. Firefox and command-line continue to fail. The one annoyance with this workaround is Opera has a dependency on qt3. I was hoping to avoid qt3 apps in Karmic. So far installing Opera is the only way I can make Anyconnect work in Karmic.

[ukchucktown]

Re: Cisco sucks...

I finally got this working with the latest 2.4.0202 client from Cisco and Karmic 64-bit updated today. What a pain, Cisco should address 64-bit Linux support in their products.

Here are the steps...

1. Install Anyconnect (vpnsetup.sh)
2. Download getlibs-all.deb (Google it) and install with dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb
3. Install missing libraries with getlibs /opt/cisco/vpn/bin/vpn
4. Install sqlite3 with getlibs libsqlite3.so.0
5. Create directory /usr/local/firefox
6. Change directory to /usr/local/firefox and create symbolic links.

# ln -s /usr/lib32/libnss3.so
# ln -s /usr/lib32/libplc4.so
# ln -s /usr/lib32/libnspr4.so
# ln -s /usr/lib32/libsmime3.so

7. Reinstall Anyconnect (vpnsetup.sh)
8. Connect

[ukchucktown]

Re: [SOLVED] Cisco sucks...

I had to add one more comment. Somebody upstairs really didn't want me using my VPN at home. I found out today my setup was working at the office but not at home. I bypassed my router and it worked in 9.10. The strange part was it worked in a Windows VM, OS X and a 9.04 box without issue. I checked my router settings, no issues that would cause the failure. As a last resort, I checked for new firmware on my router. Lucky me, a recent upgrade. I install it, restart and reload my router configuration and the damn thing works in 9.10 behind my router. I would of been chasing phantoms for days if not for the success at my office yesterday.

If anyone hits this problem, my configuration was Karmic 9.10, Cisco Anyconnect 2.x and a D-Link 655 with the 1.21 firmware. You still need the 64-bit hack described in my previous post but watch out if you have my router/software combo. The 1.32 firmware fixed the problem.