TU Braunschweig - VPN on Debian without Cisco AnyConnect

October 25, 2015 1-minute read

My employer TU Braunschweig supports VPN connections via the Cisco AnyConnect client. Unfortunately, the client is closed source and the installation on Debian stable fails with Failed to start vpnagentd.service: Unit vpnagentd.service failed to load: No such file or directory.. The following methods have been proven to work using open source packages from Debian.

VPN over SSL

To tunnel all traffic over SSL, install AnyConnect support with apt-get network-manager-openconnect-gnome, then add a new VPN connection to the Network Manager using “Cisco AnyConnect Compatible VPN (openconnect)". Use the following configuration:

Gateway: vpngate.tu-bs.de

The connect to it and enter your credentials to authenticate.

VPN over IPSec

To tunnel all traffic over IPSec, install vpnc support with apt-get network-manager-vpnc-gnome, then add a new VPN connection to the Network Manager using “Cisco Compatible VPN (vpnc)". Use the following configuration:

Gateway: vpngate.tu-bs.de
User name: $your-y-number
User password: $your-password
Group name: tubsipsec
Group password: tuipsec