Installation of the Cisco VPN-Client on Ubuntu

This HowTo addresses an issue installing the Cisco VPN client on Ubuntu linux since Ubuntu Version 9.04 (JauntyJackalope, Karmic Koala, Lucid Lynx, Maverick Meerkat):

• Download the Cisco VPN client software: Students of our University may download the current version from here.
• Extract the software into a new directory. A good location is /usr/local/src/cisco-vpnclient/ (replace the filename with the name of your download):

  tar -xvzf vpnclient-linux-x86_64-4.8.02.0030-k9.tar.gz

• Change to that directory:

  cd cisco-vpnclient

• Get the patch from LAMNK:

  wget http://www.lamnk.com/download/fixes.patch

• Install the tool patch if necessary from the repository. You need superuser privileges to do this:

  sudo apt-get install patch

• Apply the patch to the cisco software:

  patch < ./fixes.patch

• Install the vpn client:

  sudo ./vpn_install

• The installation should run now without any error messages. You're almost done: Install the profile and certificate according to your company or university instructions. See here for instructions for the University of Applied Sciences, Giessen.

Actually the patch files are not my work. All credit goes to the people at tuxx-home.at forum and Ngo Ky Lam.