Getting Shrew Soft VPN Client Working on Ubuntu 11.10

I recently built a new pfSense router for my home lab. After getting everything up and running I set up an IPSec VPN so I could get secure access to my home lab from where ever I may be. Having never setup an IPSec VPN before, I wasn't sure which client people used. I searched Synaptic for "ipsec" and found one called Shrew Soft VPN Client. After Googling around a little more, I found that, that was a pretty commonly used client for IPSec VPN connections. I installed it via Synaptic, filled in all my settings and hit the connect button. Below was the output:


config loaded for site mysite
attached to key daemon ...
peer configured
iskamp proposal configured
esp proposal configured
ipcomp proposal configured
client configured
local id configured
remote id configured
pre-shared key configured
bringing up tunnel ...
negotiation timout occurred
tunnel disabled
detached from key daemon ...



After trying to connect a few times, and rechecking my settings on my pfSense box, I decided to Google around alternative clients. I tried using one called OpenSwan, and another called StrongSwan, that were both plugins for NetworkManager. Neither of them worked, so I was back to square one.

To make this work on Ubuntu 11.10 you need to use an older version, version 2.15 to be exact. To install it, do the following:

For x86 systems:

# wget http://mirror.pnl.gov/ubuntu//pool/universe/o/openssl098/libssl0.9.8_0.9.8o-7ubuntu1_i386.deb

# wget http://mirror.pnl.gov/ubuntu//pool/universe/i/ike/ike-qtgui_2.1.5+dfsg-2_i386.deb

# wget http://mirror.pnl.gov/ubuntu//pool/universe/i/ike/ike_2.1.5+dfsg-2_i386.deb

# dpkg -i *.deb


For x64 systems:

# wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openssl/libssl0.9.8_0.9.8o-5ubuntu1.2_amd64.deb

# wget http://mirror.pnl.gov/ubuntu//pool/universe/i/ike/ike-qtgui_2.1.5+dfsg-2_amd64.deb

# wget http://mirror.pnl.gov/ubuntu//pool/universe/i/ike/ike_2.1.5+dfsg-2_amd64.deb

# dpkg -i *.deb

You can find it in your Internet menu.

dcprom0