Ease the VPN connect/disconnect process

If you're like me, you often find yourself connecting to VPN networks. Every time I open my laptop, I must log on to the VPN in order to access the Internet. Not that this is a tedious task, but it is annoying. So I thought I'd write an AppleScript to automate the task. Right before I attempted to write the script (which would connect if and only if a specific wifi network is joined), I came across this free little application called PearportVPN (it's the third entry on that page).It does all the work for you, and even disconnects from the VPN before putting your Mac to sleep. That feature is great -- otherwise you would receive a time-out message if you forget to disconnect from your VPN. Here's a screenshot of the pearPortVPN interface, in case you're curious as to what it looks like. I have no affiliation with pear, but thought others might f...

published on Friday, the 11. May 2007, macosxhints

A simple fix for a 'Send all traffic over VPN' issue

In setting up a VPN on my OS X Server at the office, I was having trouble getting the OS X client option Send all traffic over VPN to actually do what it says. In fact, the setting appeared to change nothing on my client machine. After much googling and searching the Apple Discussion forums, I couldn't find anything specific to my issue, so I wanted to reveal the solution here for others to enjoy.Simply go to your Network Preferences, open your Network Port Configurations, and drag the VPN entry to the top of the list.This seems to force all TCP/IP traffic over the VPN no matter what the Send all traffic over VPN setting is, but only when you are connected to a VPN. I don't think this is an ideal solution, but at least it allows me to tunnel all my traffic while traveling.

published on Thursday, the 10. May 2007, macosxhints

VPN Issues With New Airport Extreme 802.11n

An anonymous reader writes "The new Airport Extremes are shipping and some users are reporting problems with certain types of VPN connectivity. There is a work-around posted in Apple's support forums, but the solution is less than ideal. These issues were not experienced in Apple's earlier Airport Extreme, and users are calling for Apple to fix the issue. Some have even taken their unit back to Apple until a fix is created."

published on Sunday, the 11. February 2007, apple-slashdot

10.4: Cisco VPN Client causes MacPro kernel panics

After purchasing a brand new MacPro recently, I began to install a number of third party applications. After doing some system updates that forced me to shut down, I started to receive a generic kernel panic error "You must shut down your computer," and had to force a shut down with the power button. This happened on all the accounts on my system, but did not happen during restarts or after a Safe Boot. I searched through the logs and found a lot of references to the Cisco VPN client right before the crash. After uninstalling the Cisco VPN client, the shut down crashes stopped, so it would appear that the Cisco VPN client was the culprit. I was unable to find anything on the Cisco site about this nor in the MacOSXHints forums so I hope this might help anyone experiencing the same issue. [robg adds: From this thread on the Apple Discussions site, it appears this is...

published on Thursday, the 28. September 2006, macosxhints

Yet another way to get a remote IP address

I have a machine at work and one at home (common problem, yes?) and I want to access the one at work from home via VNC. Well, to properly use that I need to login to the VPN and then login to the remote machine -- but I need to know the IP address, and since we use dynamic addressing, you know the rest. I saw a whole bunch of scripts here for how to have your PowerBook phone home, but they didn't cut it -- too complex and ultimately not what I needed. So I made this simple script: #!/bin/sh #Script name: writeip # # Get my Ethernet Adapter IP Address # And write it to a file # ipconfig getifaddr en0 > ~/Desktop/IP.txt # # Copy that file to my iDisk # cp ~/Desktop/IP.txt /Volumes/<idiskname>/Doc​uments/IP.txt If I make sure that my iDisk is set to automatically mount on login (using login items you can select a volume to automatically mount), then this script will get my IP address, write it to ...

published on Wednesday, the 13. September 2006, macosxhints

Mount a Linux home dir on a Mac via OpenVPN

I've compiled a detailed step by step explanation of how to mount your home directory on a Linux server (Debian GNU/Linux based) via a mini-VPN on your Mac. The How To uses OpenVPN and it's marvellous client counterpart Tunnelblick.Here's a short summary of the steps involved:Download and install OpenVPN on your server.Configure OpenVPN on your server.Install and set up Samba on your server, if it's not there already.Start openvpn and samba.Download and install Tunnelblick on your Mac.[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]

published on Tuesday, the 8. August 2006, macosxhints

Mount a Linux home dir on a Mac via OpenVPN

I've compiled a detailed step by step explanation of how to mount your home directory on a Linux server (Debian GNU/Linux based) via a mini-VPN on your Mac. The How To uses OpenVPN and it's marvellous client counterpart Tunnelblick.Here's a short summary of the steps involved:Download and install OpenVPN on your server.Configure OpenVPN on your server.Install and set up Samba on your server, if it's not there already.Start openvpn and samba.Download and install Tunnelblick on your Mac.[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]

published on Tuesday, the 8. August 2006, macosxhints

10.4: Configure a secure L2TP VPN

This is something I've wanted to set up for some time, having Googled and read through an old thread on the macosxhints forums, I decided it was time for a proper how-to on configuring a secure L2TP VPN under Mac OS X 10.4 client.If you're interested in this, read on for the details... First of all, you need to create the file /Library -> Preferences -> SystemConfiguration -> com.apple.RemoteAccessServers.​plist, with this content.Notes:This is an old-style plist for ease of reading; both old- and new-styles will work just fine.The IPv4:DestAddressRanges property specifies the beginning and end of a free range of addresses on your local network which will be handed out to c...

published on Tuesday, the 20. June 2006, macosxhints

10.4: A script for PPTP custom routing on VPNs

To stop OS X 10.4 from creating a default route to your VPN connection, open Internet Connect (in Applications). Choose Options from the Connect menu, then uncheck the "Send all traffic over VPN connection" option. Click OK, ...

published on Tuesday, the 21. February 2006, macosxhints

10.4: A workaround for a Cisco VPN client problem

The Cisco VPN client 4.7.00 (0510) mostly works for me on OS X 10.4.4, but I get "Error 51" sporadically, and I used to have to reboot to stop it, but not any more. I took a tip that I found on VersionTracker and did a sligh...

published on Friday, the 17. February 2006, macosxhints