Cisco Systems VPN Client Version 4.8.00 (0490)
Copyright (C) 1998-2005 Cisco Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Client Type(s): Linux
Running on: Linux 2.6.22-2-686 #1 SMP Fri Aug 31 00:24:01 UTC 2007 i686
Config file directory: /etc/opt/cisco-vpnclient

Initializing the VPN connection.
Secure VPN Connection terminated locally by the Client
Reason: Failed to establish a VPN connection.
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Looks like a very reasonable error message, does it not? … No - there’s absolutely no information here which helps us debug the problem. HOWEVER! I’ve recognized that the following has helped to avoid the problem:

• Bring down network interfaces which you don’t intend to use. This error has been observed when a wired interface has been up, but without a connection - with wireless on. ifdown eth0 solves the problem in some cases.
• vpnc does not have this error. You should use vpnc because it does not require proprietary modules to work, and it is probably included in your distributions packet management system. In debian - installing vpnc is as simple as running “apt-get install vpnc”. If you have pcf-files for the cisco vpn client which you want to reuse, you can use pcf2vpnc to convert it. Download pcf2vpnc here: http://svn.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/vpnc/trunk/pcf2vpnc

posted by Trygve at 9:36 pm & filed under Software, Linux |