Connecting to a L2TP/IPSec VPN from Ubuntu desktop

19 Replies

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 a GUI 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.

19 thoughts on “Connecting to a L2TP/IPSec VPN from Ubuntu desktop”

Nst.web.id July 14, 2011 at 6:02 pm

thanks for vpn tutorial bro, im waiting your next post about ubuntu or other linux

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pbailey Post authorJuly 14, 2011 at 6:50 pm

Il’l try to do my best.

Phillip

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fossilet August 6, 2011 at 3:07 am

Thank you for the post. I cannot connect your way. The official wiki suggests checking the last three PPP protocols. After that I can connect.

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guille August 9, 2011 at 7:15 am

Thanks god i found your blog and l2tp-ipsec-vpn. Your tutorial worked really well to setup my VPN connection. I still had to iterate a few times with the IP settings to make it work (eg. need to put the DNS servers in automatic)

you made my day!

g

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chev September 29, 2011 at 6:22 pm

Yes excellent tuto .

but,…

the application of this tutorial does not allow the operation of the vpn long term.
and if the internet crash, the vpn also planted but does not reconnect

Result: vpn connection interrupted the exposure causes the PC concerned.

this problem has been, is found in Debian and derivatives (Ubuntu and others).

For my part,
I note that the key concern in the debian en fr version while it does not seem worried.

A solution you one? If so I am very interested because my machines are remote and therefore a source vpn death is bad security.

Thank you for the follow-up to this post.

Reply ↓
chev September 29, 2011 at 6:24 pm

Correction with apologies: I did not read before sending:

debian concerned: Fr, De (utschland) and En.
It (alian) has no worries.

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Prakash October 20, 2011 at 12:28 pm

Hi,

Have followed all steps but I am getting following error on Ubuntu 11.10

——————————————-
ipsec_setup: Stopping Openswan IPsec…
Stopping xl2tpd: xl2tpd.
ipsec_setup: Starting Openswan IPsec 2.6.28…
ipsec_setup: No KLIPS support found while requested, desperately falling back to netkey
ipsec_setup: NETKEY support found. Use protostack=netkey in /etc/ipsec.conf to avoid attempts to use KLIPS. Attempting to continue with NETKEY
Starting xl2tpd: xl2tpd.
Last command timed out
000 initiating all conns with alias=’connName’
021 no connection named “connName”
[ERROR 300] ‘IPsec’ failed to negotiate or establish security associations

Reply ↓
Nk October 21, 2011 at 4:15 pm

Hi,

I tried this on Ubuntu 11.04 and it seems after install and reboot, I couldnt find L2Tp in edit connections.
Any idea?
Thanks

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wwwww December 10, 2011 at 12:13 pm

[ERROR 99] L2tpIPsecVpnControlDaemon is either not started or connection to it failed

Reply ↓
JamesCage December 12, 2011 at 12:29 pm

Nk: Same problem here with Ubuntu 11.10

Reply ↓
pbailey Post authorDecember 13, 2011 at 9:45 pm

Hello,

looks like it’s a problem related with the new 3.0 kernel and the IPSEC module.

Reply ↓
bijan January 18, 2012 at 6:45 am

hello,
nice post but i have a problem. i am behind NAT (like many others) and on vpn server (WinServer2003) i limited to a static ip address (like: 192.168.255.12). but with this method, vpn connection tries to connect with the ip address of my local network (192.168.2.4)!!

so consequently, connection will fail!
how could i set a manual ip address to connect with?

Reply ↓
Gary April 3, 2012 at 10:47 pm

Hi All,

Please could you let me which version of Ubuntu this works for? I have tried 11.10 Desktop x32 to no avail. Many thanks

Gary

Reply ↓
pbailey Post authorApril 4, 2012 at 6:17 am

Hi Gary,

unfortunately the ipsec modules are not working on the 3.* kernel version. Let’s hope for some good news in the Ubuntu 12.04 release. This how to was written for Ubuntu 11.04.

Best,

Phillip

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Arian July 31, 2012 at 9:16 am

Hi

I don’t have pre shared key and my company don’t no what is it and don’t have.
How i can find this?

Reply ↓
Jonner September 21, 2012 at 8:13 pm

Philip,
‘Worked a treat. Had tried this before but as you had hoped, this seems to have been fixed on 12.04 that I am currently using. Can’t seem to get DNS at the minute but can RDP over IP which is all I require. Ubuntu x64 Desktop to Sonicwall TZ200 L2TP server.

Cheers

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Archil November 9, 2012 at 8:19 pm

I am getting the following errot
what can it be ?

buntu-1204-precise-64-minimal ~ # nmcli con up id vpn1

(process:6418): GLib-WARNING **: (/build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.3/./glib/gerror.c:390):g_error_new_valist: runtime check failed: (domain != 0)
Error: No suitable device found: no active connection or device.
root@Ubuntu-1204-precise-64-minimal ~ #

more details about my configuration

~ # lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise
uname -a
Linux Ubuntu-1204-precise-64-minimal 3.2.0-32-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 26 21:33:09 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Reply ↓
Jonathan Mergy December 23, 2012 at 5:58 am

Bummer. Trying to get it going on Ubuntu 12.10. No dice

Starting xl2tpd: invoke-rc.d: initscript xl2tpd, action “start” failed.
dpkg: error processing xl2tpd (–configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of l2tp-ipsec-vpn-daemon:
l2tp-ipsec-vpn-daemon depends on xl2tpd (>= 1.2.5); however:
Package xl2tpd is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing l2tp-ipsec-vpn-daemon (–configure):
dependency problems – leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of l2tp-ipsec-vpn:
l2tp-ipsec-vpn depends on l2tp-ipsec-vpn-daemon (>= 0.9.8); however:
Package l2tp-ipsec-vpn-daemon is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing l2tp-ipsec-vpn (–configure):
dependency problems – leaving unconfigured
Setting up libcli1.9:amd64 (1.9.6-1) …
Setting up l2tpns (2.1.21-1.1ubuntu1) …
Starting l2tpns: l2tpns.
Processing triggers for libc-bin …
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
Processing triggers for ureadahead …
Errors were encountered while processing:
xl2tpd
l2tp-ipsec-vpn-daemon
l2tp-ipsec-vpn
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

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Dotnet December 25, 2012 at 3:34 pm

hi dear

thank you for tutorial

which is difference between your tutorial and below tutorial?

https://strongvpn.com/setup_ubuntu_11.10_l2tp.shtml

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