Getting The Cisco VPN Client For Unix-based Systems

If you're running a Unix-based operating system, you're no longer out in the cold when it comes to using Drexel's Cisco VPN.  Whether you need to connect to on-network Samba shares from off-network or just looking for extra security for your wireless connection, VPN is the answer.  Unfortunately, because IRT's resources in personnel and training are not unlimited, we cannot offer any official level of support for Unix-based operating systems.  To that end, we make the client software available for download via our Software FTP page, but can't really offer anything in the way of instructions or support.  For detailed documentation, please see the links following the download instructions below. 

Downloading the Cisco VPN client:

Due to the fact that there are as many Unix-based FTP or SFTP clients as there are variants of Unix and Linux, these instructions are very generalized.  You can use command-line FTP from a terminal window or whatever GUI-type client you have available, the only caveat is that, if possible, you should disable "passive FTP".  For some reason, some clients have difficulty connecting to or displaying the contents of our FTP page using passive FTP.

  1. Connect to host "software.drexel.edu" (if you're using a web browser-type client, such as IE for Unix, enter "ftp://software.drexel.edu") 
  2. For the username, when prompted, enter "drexel\(your Drexel domain ID here)" (without the quotes and parentheses) if you're using standard FTP.  If you're using an SFTP client, you can probably get away with "(your Drexel domain ID here)", so if the first format doesn't work, try the second.
  3. When prompted for your password, you need to use your Drexel domain password.  This is the one you'd use to log in to computers in the Korman classrooms, the Libraries, etc.
  4. Go to the "Students" directory if you're a student or the "FacultyandStaff" directory if you're faculty or staff.
  5. Go into the "Unix" directory.
  6. Go into the "Cisco_VPN" directory.
  7. Download whichever client you need (the file names indicate which on is for Linux and which is for Solaris)
  8. Also, wihle you're there, download the "vpn_info.txt" file, which contains the hostname for our VPN server, the Group ID and Group password, all of which you'll need to configure the client.

 

OK, it's downloaded, now what?

This is where our (Drexel IRT's) support for the Cisco client ends.  This software is provided as-is and (again) IRT doesn't support the installation, configuration, or use of the software.  The following Cisco documents should help you get the client installed and operational, but if you have problems, please DO NOT contact the IRT help desk. 

The full client user guide is available in PDF form here.  For HTML versions of the individual sections click one of the following:

Overview of the Cisco VPN Client
Installing the VPN Client
Working with User Profiles
Using the command-line interface