Re: Pointers for configuring vpn please

[Dan Williams <dcbw redhat com>]

On Wed, 2017-05-10 at 15:18 +0100, Colin Helliwell wrote:
> > On 10 May 2017 at 15:12 Thomas Haller <thaller redhat com> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 2017-05-10 at 14:57 +0100, colin helliwell ln-systems com
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I'd like to get NM VPN connections going on my platform.
> > > We have a VPN for dial-in from home, so I'll just test out with
> > > that
> > > to
> > > begin with. We use a Draytek vpn client on Windows, which is
> > > configured for
> > > PPTP with the necessary username and password.
> > > I've built/installed the NetworkManager-pptp plugin, but could I
> > > get
> > > some
> > > tips please on how to manually (editing/nmcli - no gui) configure
> > > a
> > > vpn
> > > connection? (The errors from what I've tried so far aren't too
> > > informative
> > >
> > > *   reason="Could not find source connection.")
> > > Not too concerned about the securest/cleanest way to configure
> > > the
> > > connection settings - just want to verify that I've got all the
> > > necessary
> > > components installed.
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > There is no documentation. Look at the source:
> >
> > https://git.gnome.org/browse/network-manager-pptp/tree/src/nm-pptp-
> > service.c?id=6e4a25d5abbc06010f4ce3a69edad6e121582357#n112
> >
> > It seems easiest to use nm-connection-editor (with the GUI plugin
> > of
> > NetworkManager-pptp) on another host, and look at the created
> > connection in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections
> >
> > You can copy the keyfile over to your headless system (beware that
> > the
> > file must be owned by root, and chmod 600; followed by nmcli
> > connection reload).
> >
> > Alternatively, once you *know* which properties you want to set,
> > you
> > can set them via
> >  nmcli connection modify "$NAME" +vpn.data 'property1=value1'
> >
> > best,
> > Thomas
>
> Thanks Thomas.
> I've got a little further just now: 
> First my Eth0 wasn't managed [still trying to figure out how to use
> the ifupdown 'managed' setting, so at the mo' I just need to remember
> to remove it from /etc/network/interfaces]
> Then I've added "password-flags=0" and a 'vpn-secrets' section for
> the password.
> Log messages now are:
> May 10 15:12:16 wg daemon.info NetworkManager[972]:
> <info>  [1494425536.6092] audit: op="connection-activate"
> uuid="5a2d1600-531c-42de-ac21-d8a5e1f0f8c5" name="vpn-pptp" pid=1014
> uid=0 result="success"
> May 10 15:12:16 wg daemon.info NetworkManager[972]:
> <info>  [1494425536.6422] vpn-connection[0x1098218,5a2d1600-531c-
> 42de-ac21-d8a5e1f0f8c5,"vpn-pptp",0]: Started the VPN service, PID
> 1020
> May 10 15:12:16 wg daemon.info NetworkManager[972]:
> <info>  [1494425536.7229] vpn-connection[0x1098218,5a2d1600-531c-
> 42de-ac21-d8a5e1f0f8c5,"vpn-pptp",0]: Saw the service appear;
> activating connection
> May 10 15:12:16 wg daemon.info NetworkManager[972]:
> <info>  [1494425536.9368] vpn-connection[0x1098218,5a2d1600-531c-
> 42de-ac21-d8a5e1f0f8c5,"vpn-pptp",0]: VPN connection:
> (ConnectInteractive) reply received
> May 10 15:12:16 wg daemon.warn NetworkManager[972]:
> <warn>  [1494425536.9610] vpn-connection[0x1098218,5a2d1600-531c-
> 42de-ac21-d8a5e1f0f8c5,"vpn-pptp",0]: VPN connection: failed to
> connect: 'Could not find pptp client binary.'
> May 10 15:12:17 wg daemon.info NetworkManager[972]:
> <info>  [1494425537.0177] vpn-connection[0x1098218,5a2d1600-531c-
> 42de-ac21-d8a5e1f0f8c5,"vpn-pptp",0]: VPN plugin: state changed:
> stopped (6)
> May 10 15:12:17 wg daemon.info NetworkManager[972]:
> <info>  [1494425537.0292] vpn-connection[0x1098218,5a2d1600-531c-
> 42de-ac21-d8a5e1f0f8c5,"vpn-pptp",0]: VPN service disappeared
>
> So an additional package (the "pptp client binary") needed...?

Yes, the pptp package, typically obtained from your distro or from:

http://pptpclient.sourceforge.net/

Dan