3

Despite considering all the following posts,

[1] L2TP IPsec VPN client on Ubuntu 14.10 [2] How to connect to L2TP over IPSec VPN? [3] How to connect to L2TP over IPSec VPN? [4] l2tp/ipsec problem [5] Can´t connect VPN using network-manager-l2tp [6] L2TP/IPsec NetworkManager plugin using only username, password and PSK

I have been unable to set up a connection to my university's VPN.

Although strongswan and network-manager-l2tp are running, and all data (gateway/vpn ip, username, password, pre-shared key, phase1 & phase2 algorithms) are entered, I get the error message that the "Connection failed: Activation of network connection failed."

What am I missing?

EDIT 1:

ike-scan
terminal output:

130.82.18.20 Main Mode Handshake returned HDR=(CKY-R=e8f536147acee1d4) SA=(Enc=3DES Hash=SHA1 Group=2:modp1024 Auth=PSK LifeType=Seconds LifeDuration=28800) VID=4048b7d56ebce88525e7de7f00d6c2d3c0000000 (IKE Fragmentation)

Thus, I have set the "Advanced Options"-Tab to:
Phase 1 = 3des-sha1-modp1024
Phase 2 = 3des-sha1
[no UDP encapsulation]

system xl2tpd

Stopping the system xl2tpd in the terminal hasn't helped either.

2 Answers 2

1

I assume you are using network-manager-l2tp-1.2.8 and network-manager-l2tp-gnome-1.2.8 packages that are available in the default Ubuntu 17.10 repository.

Have you tried stopping and disabling the system xl2tpd ? More details in the README.md file :

What is the output of running ike-scan.sh script against your university's VPN server? You can find more details on the following page:

After seeing the output of ike-scan.sh I can advise what the phase1 & phase2 algorithms should be.

Also from the README.md file, you could look at the journalctl --boot output to help with the debugging, alternatively after issuing the following, try performing a VPN connection, which will then result in debugging info going to the terminal :

sudo killall -TERM nm-l2tp-service
sudo /usr/lib/NetworkManager/nm-l2tp-service --debug
5
  • Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately, none of your hints solved my problem. Please see the edits to my original post above.
    – apitsch
    Nov 22, 2017 at 3:22
  • The issue is a bug/side effect as a result of using a weak pre-shared key. Nov 22, 2017 at 9:26
  • Sorry prematurely sent the last comment, as hitting the return key results in an 'Add Comment'. A workaround was added in the following commit : github.com/nm-l2tp/network-manager-l2tp/commit/… , the issue is that the PSK warning has an exit status of an error and after 10 attempts it still has an error and nm-l2tp then decides to exit. Nov 22, 2017 at 9:35
  • If you are using libreswan, you could try switching to strongswan as I believe the "WARNING: using a weak secret (PSK)" message is from libreswan. Alternatively you could build from sourcecode which has the workaround commit, see the following page for building instructions : github.com/nm-l2tp/network-manager-l2tp/wiki/Building Nov 22, 2017 at 9:43
  • Forgot to mention, the "using a weak secret (PSK)" message happens if the PSK is less than 8 characters. Nov 22, 2017 at 9:46
0

The solution/workaround to my problem was basically described in this answer to a similar question:

How do I install the Cisco Anyconnect VPN client?

Running

sudo apt-get install network-manager-openconnect-gnome

and configuring the VPN with the newly available ''Cisco Anyconnect Compatible VPN (openconnect)'' did its job.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .