Hi Ron,

Assuming that fermilab is using a cisco vpn server, you can use the
cisco closed source client (only available from cisco) or you can use vpnc.

I prefer vpnc, because it does not require a kernel module that has to
be compiled after every kernel update.

How to install and use vpnc:

Download source code or rpm for el5 - just google for it. Or you can use
my rpm from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home://beyerle://LiveCD/

At the moment it's vpnc-0.5.1-12.1.

Install vpnc as root
# rpm -ihv
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/beyerle:/LiveCD/RHEL_5/i386/vpnc-0.5.1-12.1.i386.rpm

You need a cisco configuration file .pcf from fermilab. If you had once
a cisco client from fermilab, you should still have it, search below
/etc directory, for example
# find /etc -name "*.pcf"

Assuming your pcf file has the name profile.pcf, convert it to a vpnc
configuration file with
# pcf2vpnc profile.pcf > profile.vpnc

Copy it into /etc/vpnc/
# cp profile.conf /etc/vpnc/

Start vpnc as root with
# vpnc profile

and enter username and password

To stop vpnc run
# vpnc-disconnect


Hope this helps,

    Urs



Ron Rechenmacher wrote:
> Does anyone know a recipe for connecting to fermilab's CD vpn
> from an SLF5 system with the recent SLF5 kernel?
> I've been using vpnclient-linux software (which I originally got from
> the lab) from which I build a kernel module against the recent
> kernel.org kernels, but I am now wondering how I could connect if I
> were to use the recent SLF5 kernel -- where there does not appear to
> be a cisco_ipsec module available.  But I am aware that there are
> alternative vpn clients methods (ie vpnc or openvpn), but I do not
> know how to use/configure them.
> Thanks for any info.
> --Ron