ARCHIVED: In Linux, what software do I need to make a VPN connection to the IU network?

Note: To use the wireless network on any Indiana University campus, you must first ensure that you have a strong wireless connection signal. For added security and full access to IU resources, you need to establish a VPN connection. IU students, faculty, and staff need to register their computers before making a wireless connection at IU Bloomington and IUPUI. See the instructions in the "On-campus wireless" section of At IUB and IUPUI, how do I register my computer? (If you are using a Network Access account, instead see At IUB and IUPUI, what is a Network Access account, and how do I get one?)

In Linux, you will need the following software to make a VPN connection to the Indiana University network:

• PPP daemon
• Kernel modules
• PPTP client

Once you have installed the appropriate software, you can form a VPN connection by following the steps at ARCHIVED: In Linux at IUB or IUPUI, how do I make a VPN connection to the IU network? If the instructions listed in this document do not cover your Linux distribution or do not work for you, see the Additional instructions below.

Note: IU's VPN is intended for individual computing accounts only. Group and departmental accounts cannot access the VPN. See Why can I not make a VPN connection through an IU group or departmental account?

PPP daemon

To form a VPN connection, you must have a PPP daemon capable of Microsoft Point to Point Encryption (MPPE).

If you are running the latest version of RedHat Enterprise, SUSE, Ubuntu, or Gentoo, you probably already have a PPP daemon with the required support. You can check this by entering the following command at the shell prompt:

This command will give you the location of the installed PPP daemon (usually /usr/sbin/pppd). If it does not show this information, you will need to install a PPP daemon; download it from your distribution's repository.

You can find RPMs, source code, and installation instructions for older versions or other distributions at:

Kernel modules

To form a VPN connection, you must have MPPE kernel modules.

If you are running kernel 2.6.15 or later, you already have MPPE support in your kernel. To check your kernel version number, enter the following command at the shell prompt:

You can also check whether the MPPE kernel modules are already enabled on your system by entering the following command at the shell prompt:

If the modules are enabled, you may receive a warning about the modules tainting the kernel license or you may receive no output at all. In either case, skip to the section regarding the PPTP client. If you received the message "Can't locate module ppp-compress-18" you will need to enable and install the modules using the instructions for your distribution.

For MPPE kernel modules, source code, and installation instructions, see:

If you have RHEL, you need to install the Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) RPM and the kernel-ppp-mppe RPM. From the web site above, follow the instructions for Fedora.

PPTP client

To form a VPN connection, you must have a current PPTP client installed. To determine whether it is already installed, enter the following command at the shell prompt:

This command should give you the location of the installed PPTP client (usually /usr/sbin/pptp). If it does not show this information, you need to install a PPTP client. Download it using your distribution's package management, or see:

For example, Ubuntu users can install PPTP by entering the command (as root):

For other distributions, obtain PPTP and installation instructions at:

Additional instructions

For additional instructions specific to older versions of Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake, NetBSD, Red Hat 7.3, 8.0, and 9.0, and SUSE 8.2, visit:

Also see:

• Using Linux, how do I set up PPP?