Craig Box's journeys, stories and notes...


NetworkManager PPTP plugin: One Ubuntu package, hold the pepper!

Please see the updated NetworkManager PPTP Plugin for Ubuntu page. Thanks!

Some time after blogging about getting NetworkManager's PPTP plugin checked out of CVS, I have some news to report.

Tony Mee is a legend. The author of the plugin has spent a lot of time with me, by e-mail, Jabber and Skype, accepting bugfixes, working on solutions, explaining things slowly for my non-programmer-brain. Most of the work done has been by him. I can't thank him enough here.

A few points to note first:

  • This plugin is in the middle of being converted to handle things that aren't just PPTP, and as such it presents a few more options than it might need to. Ignore screens about GPRS and Bluetooth; hopefully a subsequent version will see me disable them.
  • It is the CVS HEAD version, with the new pluggable-auth-dialog removed, as it just didn't want to build right, and isn't yet ready to replace the old auth-dialog.
  • Default PPP options might not suit - you will probably have to tick "Refuse EAP" on Authentication and "Require MPPE encryption/Require 128 bit MPPE encryption" on Compression & Encryption to connect to a Windows 2003 VPN server.
  • There are a variety of bugs with the current version of NM that could bite you. The VPN plugins can't set the MTU, you can't edit a VPN connection immediately after making it, irrelevant tabs aren't hidden - most of these will require the new 0.7 series to be released, which probably won't happen before Edgy.
  • You will have to restart DBUS, or log out and log back in again, after installing this plugin, before you can connect.

As usual, everything I know about autotools and CVS I leant from Perry. Thanks!

Now, for the fun part. I have packaged the NetworkManager PPTP plugin for Ubuntu 6.06. Download it here. I will have it up in an apt repository in the next couple of days. Please raise bugs in the program at the GNOME bugzilla, please leave comments on the package or general messages of "Hello!" in the comments below.

The next step is to find out how to disable all the irrelevant parts in the package, and start considering my potential future as an Ubuntu MOTU.

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20 Responses to “NetworkManager PPTP plugin: One Ubuntu package, hold the pepper!”

  1. Casey Watson says:

    Thanks for the build Craig.

    A note for users:

    Don't forget to restart dbus after you install the .deb package.

    sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart

  2. [...] My NetworkManager PPTP plugin package for Ubuntu is sitting in the REVU queue.  If all goes well it will be approved and end up in Universe for Edgy. [...]

  3. JP Renaud says:

    Hi,
    I installed your package on Kubuntu using knetworkmanager. I now have the entries to configure VPNs but where do I actually connect to a new VPN? In "VPN Connections", I have ony "Disconnect" which is grayed out and "Configure".

    I have tried running nm-applet instead of knetworkmanager and I have the same entries.

    Thanks for any help,

    JP

  4. Craig says:

    Have you restarted d-bus? /etc/init.d/dbus force-reload (or restarting the PC) should fix that, at least for NM-Applet.

    Otherwise, you need to add one before you can connect to it... you do this under Configure?

    (New packages in REVU do the reload for you)

  5. Ray says:

    Hi,

    I have install this plugin and configured VPN using the configure option on network manager VPN. However, the VPN name configured is greyed out togethe with the disconnect option.

    What could be the cause?

    Thanks.

    Ray

  6. Craig says:

    If it can't be fixed by reloading DBUS it's not worth fixing 🙂

  7. Ray says:

    Hi,

    It seems that the VPN plugins does not work when I connect to internet using dialup/PPP. It work perfectly if the PC connected via the LAN port.

    I think this is a bug.

    Thanks.

    Ray

  8. Gabe says:

    Hi,

    Thanks for the plugin, works great here.

    I'm having issues with DNS-over-the-tunnel. I need the VPN's DNS server to get auto-added to my resolv.conf.

    Syslog says:

    NetworkManager: ^IDHCP returned name servers but system has disabled dynamic modification!

    My system uses resolvconf - is that the problem? It would be great if your plugin checked for resolvconf and used that when it's present.

    Thanks!

  9. Eddie says:

    Hi! Great work Craig! Are you aware that the latest .deb file available on /~crb/nm is dependant on libdbus-1-2 which is not available on edgy? (libdbus-1-3 is available, though) I had to install the dapper version in order to get this to install...

    After configuring the VPN, I try and establish it and I am asked to authenticate, which I do, and immediately (almost too quickly...) it fails with "Could not start the VPN due to login failure. Bad username or password".

    I've tried setting the debug option, and looking into every log file I can find, but none of them tell me anything useful...

    Any ideas?

    Thanks,

    Eddie

  10. [...] Thanks to the efforts of the tireless ajmitch (does he ever sleep?), not only is my network-manager-pptp package mostly finished, it's also going to be available in the universe repository for Ubuntu Edgy. [...]

  11. Craig says:

    Gabe: PPP options tab, "Use Peer DNS". Next time please leave an email address so I can contact you!

  12. Wilb says:

    Much like Eddie, I'm having the same problem about not being able to authenticate, even after installing your latest builds. Looking at /var/log/syslog, this looks like the offending problem:

    Oct 3 00:03:22 kernel-mustard NetworkManager: ^IVPN Activation (VPN) Stage 3 of 4 (Connect) reply received.
    Oct 3 00:03:22 kernel-mustard NetworkManager: ^IVPN Activation (VPN) Stage 4 of 4 (IP Config Get) timeout scheduled...
    Oct 3 00:03:22 kernel-mustard NetworkManager: ^IVPN Activation (VPN) Stage 3 of 4 (Connect) complete, waiting for IP configuration...

    /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.4/nm-pppd-plugin.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
    Oct 3 00:03:22 kernel-mustard pppd[8169]: Couldn't load plugin nm-pppd-plugin.so
    Oct 3 00:03:22 kernel-mustard NetworkManager: ^I nm_vpn_service_process_signal (): VPN failed for service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.ppp_starter
    ', signal 'LoginFailed', with message 'Bad Username or Password'.
    Oct 3 00:03:22 kernel-mustard NetworkManager: ^IVPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.ppp_starter' signaled state change 3 -> 6.
    Oct 3 00:03:22 kernel-mustard NetworkManager: ^I nm_vpn_service_stop_connection (): (VPN Service org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.ppp_starter): could n
    ot stop connection 'VPN' because service was 6.

    So it looks like /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.4/nm-pppd-plugin.so is the problem. On my system, nm-pppd-plugin.so is in /usr/lib/2.4.4b1 and symlinking isn't good enough - the logs then show the error:

    pppd[8332]: Plugin nm-pppd-plugin.so is for pppd version 2.4.4b1, this is 2.4.4

    So basically it looks like pppd needs upgrading - is this packaged anywhere or am I gonna need to build from source?

  13. Craig says:

    http://www.wlug.org.nz/~crb/nm/edgy/network-manager-pptp_0.6.3+cvs20060819-0ubuntu2_i386.deb

    The package was building for the old version. Building it on dapper in an edgy pbuilder did this. Edgy on Edgy works fine.

  14. Wilb says:

    Just to confirm that worked fine - cheers 😀

  15. jason says:

    Getting a wierd error, help 🙂

    Oct 13 11:36:11 localhost pppd[5944]: Connect: ppp0 /dev/pts/0
    Oct 13 11:36:11 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_rep:pptp_ctrl.c:251]: Sent control packet type is 1 'Start-Control-Connection-Request'
    Oct 13 11:36:11 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:738]: Received Start Control Connection Reply
    Oct 13 11:36:11 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:772]: Client connection established.
    Oct 13 11:36:12 localhost pppd[5944]: nm-pppd-plugin: CHAP check hook.
    Oct 13 11:36:12 localhost pppd[5944]: nm-pppd-plugin: CHAP check hook.
    Oct 13 11:36:12 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_rep:pptp_ctrl.c:251]: Sent control packet type is 7 'Outgoing-Call-Request'
    Oct 13 11:36:16 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:857]: Received Outgoing Call Reply.
    Oct 13 11:36:16 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:896]: Outgoing call established (call ID 0, peer's call ID 256).
    Oct 13 11:36:16 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:949]: PPTP_SET_LINK_INFO received from peer_callid 0
    Oct 13 11:36:16 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:952]: send_accm is 00000000, recv_accm is FFFFFFFF
    Oct 13 11:36:16 localhost pptp[5952]: anon warn[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:955]: Non-zero Async Control Character Maps are not supported!
    Oct 13 11:36:17 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:949]: PPTP_SET_LINK_INFO received from peer_callid 0
    Oct 13 11:36:17 localhost pptp[5952]: anon log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:952]: send_accm is FFFFFFFF, recv_accm is FFFFFFFF
    Oct 13 11:36:17 localhost pptp[5952]: anon warn[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:955]: Non-zero Async Control Character Maps are not supported!

  16. Craig says:

    No idea on that one, but lots of stuff to search for on Google. Other assistance welcomed from readers!

  17. [...] bin ich auf die richtige Seite gekommen, auf der Stand: Default PPP options might not suit - you will probably have to tick [...]

  18. Mauri says:

    I've the same problem as Eddie on Ubuntu Gutsy:

    "After configuring the VPN, I try and establish it and I am asked to authenticate, which I do, and immediately (almost too quickly...) it fails with "Could not start the VPN due to login failure. Bad username or password".

    I've tried setting the debug option, and looking into every log file I can find, but none of them tell me anything useful...

    Any ideas?"

    thanks

    mauri

  19. hollerith says:

    Same issue as Eddie - ubuntu feisty but not from the outset. I had to fumble around with this to get this messed up. Eddie's message goes away if you uncheck require mpcc (I noticed /var/syslog says "unrecognized option 'require-mppc'.......NetworkManager: ^I nm_vpn_service_process_signal (): VPN failed for service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.ppp_starter', signal 'LoginFailed', with message 'Bad Username or Password'. ) "

    Is obvious bum-steer. Meh, bloody microsoft, it might be easier to reconfigure the network admin to install cisco than get this working.

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