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Informatics Computing Centre

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Dept. of Informatics

Informatics VPN on Ubuntu

Accoss to the Informatics VPN server on current Ubuntu distributions (e.g. Ubuntu 18.04) can be configuted in the network settings. No additional sonftware is needed.

Set-up:

Go to Settings → Network. Click on the '+' sign on the right side of "VPN" to configure a new VPN connection. Choose as connection type "Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP)".

Add to the tab Identitiy:

Name: is for you to choose, e.g. Informatics VPN

General
Gateway:  fbivpn.informatik.uni-hamburg.de
Optional
User name: your Informatics accout, e.g.  0musterm
Password: your password; can be left emty and will then be asked for at connection time,
NT Domain:  INFORMATIK

Click on Advanced and configure:

Authentication
Allow the following authentication methods: Choose ☑ MSCHAPv2
Security and Compression
Choose ☑ Use Point-to-Point encryption (MPPE),
      set Security to  128-bit (most secure),
      and check ☑ Allow stateful encryption
Check ☑ Allow BSD data compression,
Check ☑ Allow Deflate data compression,
Check ☑ Use TCP header compression

Configure the tab IPv4:

IPv4 Method
Choose ☑  Automatic (DHCP)

Click on Apply.

For incomprehensible reasons, these settings do not work the first time. You have to change something and save it again (and take it back if necessary) before it actually works. This bug exists at least since Ubuntu 12.04.

VPN with SSTP

Alternatively, instead of the VPN connection with the outdated PPTP protocol, you can use the SSTP protocol which establishes a VPN connection on HTTPS port 443. However, this is not possible with built-in Ubuntu resources. You have to set up an additional PPA and install two packages from there:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:eivnaes/network-manager-sstp
sudo apt update
sudo apt install network-manager-sstp sstp-client

The VPN is then set up as above, except for selecting "Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (SSTP)" as connection type at the beginning.

VPN with L2TP

Alternatively, instead of the VPN connection with the outdated PPTP protocol, you can use the L2TP protocol. You have to install two additional packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install network-manager-l2tp network-manager-l2tp-gnome

The VPN is then set up as above, except for selecting "Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (L2TP)" as connection type at the beginning and to enter the following string as the pre-shared key: