Ammar Surti - Fri, 2017/05/05 - 00:12

How can i download teh cisco VPN client on turnkey linux? I have the isntallaion files ready but not sure about the command to use for setup. I am new to linux so trying to see what i can do with it. Any help will be appreciated. 

I understand that turnkey linux is not the same as normal linux, so installing the VPN client software is a little more complicated than i expected. Looking forward for any replies.

Thank you

Forum: 
Support
Tags: 
vpn
Jeremy Davis's picture

Jeremy Davis - Tue, 2017/05/09 - 01:26
TurnKey is Debian under the hood (v14.x = Debian Jessie) so it should be exactly the same as installing on Debian (and possibly the same as Ubuntu as well, although we can't be sure of that).

TBH I have no idea with any VPN software other than OpenVPN. But a quick google turned up a couple of pages that look worth further reading:

http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jstern/uci_vpn_ubuntu/
http://micro.stanford.edu/wiki/How_to_install_and_configure_the_Cisco_VPN_client_on_a_Linux_computer

If that still doesn't help, then perhaps detail what you've tried and what errors you are encountering. Maybe there's something in the error messages that might give us some insight into what the issue is?!

Ammar Surti - Tue, 2017/05/09 - 06:27

Hey Jeremy,

Thank you very much for the response. The only reason we were trying to move from Turnkey linux to debian is just because we couldnt install the Cisco VPN client on it, we had a bunch of errors and our IT personels decided to move to debian. I am still trying to make this work with Turnkey. 

I love the links you shared. I will give that a try and will share the errors that I receive. I think we are running on an older version on turnkey, not sure which, i will share that once i am in office tomorrow. So is there anyway i can easily upgrade to the latest turnkey version that is compatible with the debian environment without even bothering our codeigniter folders?

I will update you if i run into any problems tomorrow.

Thanks again

Jeremy Davis's picture

Jeremy Davis - Tue, 2017/05/09 - 07:51
You are most welcome. I hope that those links help. If not, then keeping in mind my comments regarding Debian, should get you having good google results. FWIW I just googled and the links I shared looked like good ones from a quick browse, but there were plenty more results.

Assuming that the version of CodeIgniter you have is compatible with the version of PHP in v14.x (PHP v5.6) then you should be ok (Apache and MySQL versions shouldn't matter). TKLBAM migration should work well with an appliance like CodeIgniter. v14.x does include a new version of Apache, so you will need to tweak your Apache config files a little (probably nothing will work OOTB).

However, beyond that, it should be fairly straight forward. I suggest that you download an ISO or OVA of the latest appliance, fire it up in a VM and restore a recent/current TKLBAM backup to it and see what happens. Please see the doc page that outlines a suggested workflow and notes some thing you will need to manually adjust (regarding Apache but some others too).

Please don't hesitate to post back if you have issues. I can't guarantee that I can step you through fixing them all, but I'll do my best to head you in the right direction.

Ammar Surti - Tue, 2017/05/09 - 16:58

Hey Jeremy,

 

This is the error we got during installation. I am not sure how to resolve this. Maybe you can advise. 

Thank you

Jeremy Davis's picture

Jeremy Davis - Wed, 2017/05/10 - 01:40
It looks like it's trying to build a kernel module. To do that you'll need build tools and the kernel source. You can install them pretty easily on TurnKey. 
apt-get update && apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)

I'm not sure that will resolve all your issues, but it should get you further.

Ammar Surti - Wed, 2017/05/10 - 03:49

I already tried that before sharing the errors with you. I did the apt-get update && apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r), but nothing changed. The same errors continued. 

Regards,

Jeremy Davis's picture

Jeremy Davis - Wed, 2017/05/10 - 07:21
FWIW, it's probably mentioning things that you have tried (like that). It would have saved me ~15 mins of research and reading...! :) Anyway, no big deal.

I may be wrong, but it looks pretty clear to me that there is some dependency that it needs. During my googling I did find someone mention installing "linux-headers-generic", but I doubt that will resolve it (but who knows...). Due to my lack of familiarity with the software, I'm not sure what the issue might be.

I was going to suggest that you contact Cisco support and ask them. But during my googling I found a few people saying that it's too old and you will have issues with newer versions of the kernel (Red Hat generally uses really old kernels). A few people suggested using 'vpnc' instead (open source Cisco compatible client)?! It should install with apt. Although I have no idea on how to use it, especially in a commandline only environment.

Like I said, under the hood, TurnKey is Debian (v14.x = Debian Jessie/8) so if it works on Debian then it should work on TurnKey. Although keep in mind, as a minimalist server distro, there may be things that are installed in a default Debian, that aren't in TurnKey (but anything that is in Debian and not TurnKey can be installed with apt get.)

If you still don't have any joy, I'd recommend that you pressure your VPN provider move to a more robust open source solution! :)

Ammar Surti - Wed, 2017/05/10 - 14:37

Jeremy,

Thanks for the response. 

I tried a another update for kernel and after doing that, the old error went and new ones show up. Any recommendation on these? I also now see a build folder under /lib/modules/3.2.0-4-amd64 that says build which wasnt there before. 

Regards,

Jeremy Davis's picture

Jeremy Davis - Thu, 2017/05/11 - 01:25
It looks like this software is not compatible with recent Linux Kernel versions. I suspect that the only way you will get it to work (without getting down and dirty) is by installing to an OS with a really old kernel (e.g. Red Hat).

You could try to create an empty linux/config.h file (as suggested here). Or you could try making it a symlink to autoconf.h (as noted here). Or if you can edit the source code of the software that is trying to build the module (so it doesn't look for that file), although being proprietary software, that is probably easier said than done.

So bottom line is that this software is clearly very old. Out of the box, it is not compatible with TurnKey or any relatively modern Linux distro. You may be able to get it to work, but it will require you to hone your google-fu and do lots (more) trial and error. IMO, the best options are:

  • a newer version of the software that is designed to be used with a modern Linux kernel; or
  • consider alternate software options (e.g. 'vpnc'), or
  • use an alternate Linux OS (with a really old kernel e.g. Red Hat).

    • Please feel free to persevere with this, but we're outside familiar territory for me, so all I really have left are google searches. If you do persevere, please make sure that you document what you try and if you do manage to resolve it, please post back with your fix. You may be able to save someone else all the time we've put in already!

    FWIW I discovered all the above via google. I just googled the error message: "fatal error linux/config.h no such file or directory". Generally I suggest that you google the really specific error first (i.e. copy paste it into google verbatim). Then if that doesn't give you sufficient results, make it more general (e.g. remove specific lines numbers first, etc).

    Good luck with it all and hopefully you can work something out. Like I say, please post back on how you go.

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