[conspire] vpnc gui, not Network Manager

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ehud Kaldor (ehud.kaldor at gmail.com):

> Hi all,
> i am looking to ditch NetworkManager for wicd, but i cannot find a nice, 2
> click VPNC client to replace the VPNC applet in NetworkManager. does anyone
> have a recommendation? 

I assume you mean VPNC = Cisco VPN Concentrator, Cisco's proprietary VPN
software for various platforms, right?  (Pardon my ignorance, but I
honestly don't know what 'wicd' means, at all.  I infer that you mean
the GTK-based thing here, which admittedly looks pretty decent at a
quick glance:  http://wicd.sourceforge.net/)

I'm vaguely aware of NetworkManager, but don't choose to install or use
it on any of my systems, as I'd rather not have complex, GUI-dependent,
and potentially dependency-ridden and buggy software between me and
networking.  (No objection to your choosing otherwise; I'm just
explaining why I am not well-versed in its particular issues.)

If you're merely looking for software that's functional on Linux and
compatible with Cisco's VPN Concentrator client software, then the
open-source 'vpnc' program, http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~massar/vpnc/,
is reported to meet spec.  It interfaces to the kernel using the 'tun'
kernel module.  See, for example:
http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-connect-to-a-cisco-vpn-using-vpnc

If you mean something else entirely, then my apologies for not correctly
understanding your question.


> looking for something to work with pcf files, so i
> only need to put in a username and password (and maybe even remember the
> username, i dare hope...). googling it did not yield much.

I _do_ know what you mean by PCF files, having used Cisco's proprietary
package.  I'm not sure whether vpnc can use them directly, but suspect
it might.  If not, PCF files are pretty simple, really, and I doubt
you'd have much problem converting them over.

And, actually, a quick search finds:
http://baheyeldin.com/cisco/converting-cisco-easy-vpn-pcf-files-linux-vpnc-configuration-format.html