Connecting to UBC myVPN using openconnect on Ubuntu Oneric 64-bit

UBC VPN is a pain in the ass to setup on a 64-bit Ubuntu install. Luckily you can bypass the Cisco Anyconnect utility and connect to UBC vpn using openconnect:


1. Install openconnect
In order to install openconnect simply run the following command in terminal:

sudo apt-get install network-manager-openconnect

It will prompt you to install related packages, hit yes and let it finish. Many people recommend restarting once the install is finished (due to a bug in network manager) but I didn't and it worked fine.


2. Setup openconnect
Click on network manager (you can access this by hitting the applet located near your clock in the upper right of your system taskbar) and navigate to VPN Connection --> Configure VPN.


Hit the 'Add' button and select 'Cisco AnyConnect Compatible VPN (openconnect)'.

The VPN Connection type selection dialogue

Hit the 'Create...' button

Give your connection an a name (I called mine 'UBC VPN'), set the 'Gateway' field to 'myvpn.ubc.ca' and set the CA Certificate to the 'Thawte_Premium_Server_CA.pem' certificate. This certificate can be found in '/etc/ssl/certs/'

VPN Settings

/etc/ssl/certs

Hit 'Save...' button once you're done/


3. Connect
Click on network manager and select your newly created vpn connection. When prompted for username/password enter in your CWL credentials.

Connecting to UBC VPN

4. Enjoy