Network Manager, Cisco VPN, And Internet

Josh VanderLinden

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Those of us out on the eastern side of the United States are currently experiencing quite a snow storm. While this sort of storm would probably have not even made the local news in Rexburg (where my wife and I attended university), everyone is making a big deal about it around here. Part of that big deal included the option, and even recommendation, that we work from home on Friday, using the company VPN to take care of our tasks.

I was pretty excited at the idea of working from home once again (my last job was almost exclusively a work-at-home gig), so I made sure I was able to connect to the VPN a few days ago, after receiving the credentials. It took a few tries to get everything right in Windows, but eventually it started working quite well. Then I tried connecting from Linux, using the awesomeness known as Network Manager.

Since I'm currently on Fedora 12, all I had to do was make sure that I had network-manager-vpnc installed, and I could then configure a connection using the same credentials I used in Windows. I had a successful connection on the very first try, and it was working fabulously. I had access to all of my development machines and all of the tools I use on a daily basis.

It didn't take long, however, for me to notice a big problem: no Internet access. I could get to any machine I dang well pleased on the company network, but nothing on the Internet. Quite frustrating, to say the least.

I decided to leave the investigation as to why I had no Internet access and how to fix it for another night. Here I am now, tinkering with it again. I found out what I needed to change:

  • Right click on the Network Manager icon in the system tray, and select "Edit Connections..."
  • Click on the VPN tab
  • Edit your VPN connection
  • Click on the "IPv4 Settings" tab
  • Click the "Routes..." button
  • Make sure that the "Use this connection only for resources on its network" option is checked
  • Connect to your VPN, and enjoy access to the devices there as well as on the Internet!

Hopefully this saves someone else's sanity (Jeremy?)