Connecting to a L2TP/IPSec VPN from Ubuntu desktop

 

In my previous post, “Secure IPsec/L2TP VPN for on the road android devices” I have written on how to set up an IPsec/L2TP VPN server and connect to it from any android device. I was really impressed how simple it was to configure a secure VPN tunnel with IPSEC, so I decided to go a bit further and try to use the same tunnel with Ubuntu Desktop. Unfortunately the IPsec/L2TP client side isn’t well supported under Linux, this is maybe beacuse everyone is using OpenVpn. At the end I stumbled into Werner Jaeger launchpad page, where I found aGUI to manage IPsec/L2TP connection from Ubuntu Desktop, the connection set up is very straightforward and without glitches. Along with a simple PSK configuration, the GUI allow to use certificate for authentication and more advanced L2TP options as redial- timeout and attempts and of course all important PPP options.

A more extended guide can be found at http://wiki.l2tpipsecvpn.tuxfamily.org

l2tp-ipsec-vpn installation

apt-add-repository ppa:werner-jaeger/ppa-werner-vpn

apt-get update

apt-get install l2tp-ipsec-vpn

reboot

1) Right click on the icon in the notification area,
and go to ‘Edit connections’.

2) Authenticate as root.

3) Choose a name for the VPN

4) IPsec configuration:

Remote server: The ip address of the VPN server
Use pre-shared key for authentication: use the passphrase
from the server /etc/ipsec.secrets

L2TP Configuration:

Select Length bit

PPP configuration:

Select only CHAP authentication and enter the User name and

the password from the server /etc/ppp/chap-secrets copy

Click on OK

Connecting to the VPN: Go to the icon in the notification area and
click on vpnhome, wait for a couple of seconds and you must be
connected to the VPN.