Cisco VPN Client - 4.9.01.0180

Maybe the folks at Cisco have never had to actually use their web site. I've never been able to find anything on their website by navigating it; I always have to turn to Google to find a direct link. And I finally found the download area for the Cisco VPN Client for OS X and it requires some service level agreement. Their web site sucks.

Where is version 5 for Mac? The Windows version has been out for a while...

Fu** this little piece of software!!

Though build 100 works with 10.5.1 (beside this ugly UI) but only the first time after a fresh restart.

If the MBP goes to sleep the VPN Client can't connect anymore. A complete restart is the only workaround that helps.

4.9.01 (0100) seems to be a minor update from (080), which is a good thing IMHO.

The product works fine with my previous connection profiles, and also works OK via PPP (a Bluetooth to 3G phone link).

However ... Cisco VPN seems to be completely incompatible with Leopard file sharing. When a VPN connection is active, it's not possible to connect to AFP shares or do VNC screen-sharing on other Macs on the same LAN. This is even with "local LAN access" enabled on the profile.

This is quite possibly more a Leopard sharing and/or firewall problem, however. I also have a Netgear ReadyNAS fileserver on my LAN. With a VPN connection active, it's still possible to mount an AFP share on the NAS, even though shares on other Macs are inaccessible.

Bonjour advertising is also affected. An active VPN connection causes advertised servers to drop off the net. If you use Force Quit to Relaunch Finder, however, they come back.

My conclusion: Cisco VPN 4.9.01.100 does its job. Leopard may not be doing its job. Let's wait for Leopard 10.5.2 before making a final judgment.

After updating to Leopard, Cisco VPN Client 4.9.01 (0080) worked on my Macbook, but the 10.5.1 update killed it dead; when trying to start the VPNClient crashes, and the only note in the console log is an unhelpful "com.apple.launchd[71] ([0x0-0xb80b8].com.cisco.VPNClient[1603]) Exited with exit code: 255 ". Updating to (0090) didn't fix the problem.

However, it seems the problem is limited to the Mac-friendly application; I found a command-line workaround that's working for me as I speak.

In the Terminal, change to the folder where the Unix executables are:
cd /usr/local/bin/

Type in "vpn" and hit tab twice to list the three files starting with "vpn". You want to run "vpnclient". Without any parameters it displayed a basic help, and from there I figured out I needed to type:
vpnclient connect profileName

where profileName is the name of one of your profiles. It will then prompt for your ID and password.

Obviously this requires a profile to have been created when the Mac-friendly app still launched properly. Fortunately, Time Machine managed to recover my profile after it got deleted during the earlier uninstall of the Cisco VPN software; profiles are stored at /etc/opt/cisco-vpnclient/ as noted in the basic help.