Yesterday was my freshman orientation for Penn State, and among the various information that was given, I received information regarding the campus network. Apparently to connect to the campus network via WiFi, I need to connect to their VPN. That’s fine and dandy, but I can’t use just any VPN software, like the VPN client built into OS X. I need to use Cisco’s VPNClient, due to the proprietary VPN connection the Cisco hardware creates.
There is a Mac version of the client and it’s even Universal, so there is no compatibility problems. However, from what I’ve read online, the VPNClient is quite buggy across platforms, including Windows. The software also install itself very close to the kernel, so any incompatibility with an operating system update can easily send the system into kernel-panic mode. That’s something I’m not looking forward to.
With that said, has anyone had experience with the Cisco VPNClient, especially on the Intel Mac side of things? Is it stable? Does it cause problems after updating the OS? Also, do you know of any alternatives?
I know tons of other colleges and businesses use it, so there should be at least a few of you out there with experience. I don’t have any complaints with the software yet; I just want to make sure I know of the potential problems and their solutions before they come up.
9 Comments
Did they give you a key-fob number generator too? my office requires the vpn for out of office people and i just uploaded the latest win/mac/lin/sun version on the intranet. of the mac people, nobody complained yet (nor windows people for that matter too)
No, there is no number generator. All the VPNs are pre-configured in the client, so I didn’t need anything to get the addresses.
Well the number is more for the PIN. But I spoke to the Mac people recently and they all have no problems (they have mac book pros)–no problems, so i think you will be a-okay!
I actually just went through orientation as a Freshman at PSU too! I didn’t know that’s where you were going. I’ve used the VPN client a few times already (mainly in the HUB) and have had no problems on my Mac.
Well, I’m at the Lehigh Valley campus. I’ll be up at main my junior year.
Ahh, I’m up at Main. Good luck!
I used Cisco VPN on the WiFi network at UCSD and I don’t recall having any problems.
I use the Cisco VPN client on my intel Mac almost every day and haven’t had any problems with it! It’s ugly as hell, granted! But it’s stable!
Cisco WAAS seems ok for Windows applications but I’ve seen
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