OpenConnect

OpenConnect is a client for Cisco's AnyConnect SSL VPN^{[dead link 2022-09-22 ⓘ]} and Pulse Secure's Pulse Connect Secure.

Installation

Install the openconnect package.

Usage

See openconnect(8). Simply run openconnect as root and enter your username and password when prompted:

# openconnect vpnserver

More advanced invocation with username and password. Input the password after running the command.

# openconnect -u user --passwd-on-stdin vpnserver

Often VPN providers are offering different authentication groups for different access configurations like for example for a full tunnel or split tunnel connection. To show the different offered auth-groups and to get more information about the connection to the server in general use:

# openconnect --authenticate vpnserver

Sometimes, connecting to a Cisco VPN, the CSD (Cisco Secure Desktop) mechanism is required (see: https://www.infradead.org/openconnect/csd.html). In that case using the "--csd-wrapper" parameter can help, the wrappers are stored under "/usr/lib/openconnect/".

# openconnect --csd-wrapper=/usr/lib/openconnect/csd-post.sh vpnserver

Juniper Pulse Client

In order to connect to a Pulse Connect Secure server you need to know the SHA-1 of its certificate.

# openconnect --servercert=sha1:<HASH> --authgroup="single-Factor Pulse Clients" --protocol=nc <VPN_SERVER_ADDRESS>/dana-na/auth/url_6/welcome.cgi --pid-file="/var/run/work-vpn.pid" --user=<USERNAME>

GlobalProtect

Connecting to a GlobalProtect VPN server where the address is usually https://vpn.your-domain.tld/, simply do

# openconnect --protocol=gp <VPN_SERVER_ADDRESS>

Some VPN server requires you to use the alternative address

# openconnect --protocol=gp <VPN_SERVER_ADDRESS>/gateway

also your VPN might require you to generate a HIP report (gathers information about your computer), you can do that by passing in

# openconnect --csd-wrapper /usr/lib/openconnect/hipreport.sh --protocol=gp <VPN_SERVER_ADDRESS>/gateway

Split routing

Split routing can be achieved using vpn-slice-git^AUR in place of vpnc-script, so that you can selectively access hosts over the VPN but otherwise remain on your own LAN. Example:

# openconnect gateway.bigcorp.com \
      -u user1234 \
      -s 'vpn-slice 192.168.1.0/24 hostname1 alias2=alias2.bigcorp.com=192.168.1.43'

$ cat /etc/hosts
...
# vpn-slice-tun0 AUTOCREATED
192.168.1.1 dns0.tun0					
192.168.1.2 dns1.tun0
192.168.1.57 hostname1 hostname1.bigcorp.com
192.168.1.43 alias2 alias2.bigcorp.com

Proxy

ocproxy-git^AUR may be used to setup a user-level SOCKS and port forwarding proxy for OpenConnect based on lwIP:

• -D port – Set up a SOCKS5 server on PORT
• -L lport:rhost:rport – Connections to localhost:LPORT will be redirected over the VPN to RHOST:RPORT

Use-case to open RDP session in combination with rdesktop:

$ openconnect --script-tun --script "ocproxy -L 3389:rds.example.com:3389" vpnserver
$ rdesktop localhost:3389

Integration

NetworkManager

Install the networkmanager-openconnect package, then restart NetworkManager.service.

Configure and connect with nm-applet (NetworkManager's icon tray utility from network-manager-applet) or similar utility.

See NetworkManager for details.

netctl

A simple tuntap can be used to integrate OpenConnect in the normal Netctl workflow. For example:

This allows execution like:

$ netctl start vpn
$ netctl restart vpn
$ netctl stop vpn

Note that this relies on having a gpg-agent running, with the passphrase for the PGP key already cached.

If pass's interactive query is wanted, use the following line for PASSWORD_CMD:

DISPLAY=":0"
PASSWORD_CMD="su ${LOCAL_USERNAME} -c \"DISPLAY=${DISPLAY} pass ${REMOTE_USERNAME} | head -n 1\""

Adjust the DISPLAY variable as necessary.