Sanitize the kernel, bye-bye Cisco VPN

gentoovpn

I’ve been using Cisco VPN client to access GWireless and Penn State Wireless for quite a long time since I managed to get it work. Two things bother me, the notice in dmesg

cisco_ipsec: module license 'Proprietary' taints kernel.

and that the Cisco VPN client stops working after a period inactivity. It fails to connect the Virtual Adapter once it disconnects, I have to restart the machine to get it work again.

Here is an alternative application vpnc in the portage. Before we move to the next step, we need enable Device Drivers | Network device support | Universal TUN/TAP device driver support in Linux kernel. David Ramsden hacked a script to convert the Cisco VPN Client’s profile to vpnc configuration file. Copy the converted conf to /etc/vpnc/default.conf and start the vpnc service. Done.

Current /etc/init.d/vpnc does not support profiles, I might hack a patch to cope with this problem later.