Connect to a Fortinet VPN with Ubuntu

Question

I don't know a lot about VPNs but I'd like to connect to a Fortinet VPN with Ubuntu.

I can connect on Windows using Forticlient just by entering the policy server (vpn.theserver.com) and then it asks for a user/password. I use IPSec.

I used strongSwan for connecting to FortiGate from Arch Linux. See [this answer](https://serverfault.com/questions/778487/connecting-to-a-fortigate-vpn-from-a-remote-linux-machine-via-openswan/897556#897556) for instructions. — Matthias Braun, Feb 16 '18 at 14:56

Mircea Vutcovici · Answer 1 · 2019-09-30T14:45:35.273

26

If you use SSL based VPN from Fortinet, you can use openfortivpn software which is part of Ubuntu and Fedora.

$ sudo apt install -y openfortivpn || yum install -y openfortivpn
$ touch openfortivpn.conf
$ chmod go= openfortivpn.conf

Edit openfortivpn.conf:

host =
port =
username =
password =
# trusted-cert =

Connect the first time:

$ sudo openfortivpn -c openfortivpn.conf
ERROR:  Gateway certificate validation failed, and the certificate digest in not in the local whitelist. If you trust it, rerun with:
ERROR:      --trusted-cert  <some-random-string-to-add-to-trusted-cert>

Edit openfortivpn.conf file and update trusted-cert option with the string from the error. Make sure the option is not commented (remove the #).

Each time you need to connect, run:

sudo openfortivpn -c openfortivpn.conf

You could also do it straight through the command line and make an alias for it in your .bashrc. This is less secure as any user on the system will be able to see the password using ps.

sudo openfortivpn -u <USER> -p <PASSWORD> --trusted-cert <CERTIFICATE> <SERVER>:<PORT>

To disconnect press: Ctrl+C

edited Sep 30 '19 at 14:45

answered Jul 19 '18 at 21:58

Mircea Vutcovici

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2

Worked fine in debian, after compiling operfortivpn from github – Damico Apr 24 '19 at 19:25
2

Worked for me like a charm on AWS Ec2 Ubuntu 18.04 Thank you so much – Abhay Kochar May 23 '19 at 19:14
I always get a "Received bad header from gateway:" error after entering the 2factor authentication token. Guess it's time to secondboot windows sadly... – Klesun Dec 04 '19 at 09:20
hey, if I want to add the pre-shared key into this config file, how I can do this? – Nabeel Shaikh Apr 04 '20 at 16:39
Amazing job worked fine on Ubuntu 18.04 without any issue whatsoever – Terminator Aug 21 '20 at 22:36

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 24 '10 at 09:27

3

Fortinet is just an IPSEC VPN server - you don't specifically need their client to connect to it. The IPSEC HOWTO details a list of various options you have for setting up a Linux VPN client. There are also a few commercial linux IPSec clients such as Shrewsoft.

answered Jun 24 '10 at 09:27

ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells

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I found the Shrewsoft client on Linux to be almost as painful as using it on MSWindows - I switched to using vpnc - and never looked back. – symcbean Oct 10 '19 at 14:52

Connect to a Fortinet VPN with Ubuntu

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