SSL VPN on 64-bit Linux

Running Juniper SSL-VPN on 64-bit Linux

(15 February 2007)

Sun does not provide 64-bit Web Start support. Additionally the Network Connect VPN client is 32-bit. Our best bet to make the SSL VPN client work on the x64 platform is to provide it with all the 32-bit dependencies it needs.

My Test platform: FC6 x64 Base + Firefox + Dev Tools (Athlon 3000+ / nforce 3 / nvidia MX440 / 1 GB / 20 GB HDD)

Download and install 32-bit Java

• http://www.java.com/
• I used the RPM version

Download and install 32-bit Firefox

• http://www.mozilla.com/
• I extracted the tar in /opt

Install required dependencies for 32-bit Firefox

• yum -y install compat-libstdc++-33.i386

Configure JAVA Plugin

• in /opt/firefox/plugins
• ln -s /usr/java/jre1.5.0_11/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Install required dependencies for Network Connect (SSL VPN)

• yum install compat-libstdc++-296.i386

Launch 32-bit Firefox

• /opt/firefox/firefox https://$SITE&

Happy VPNing

Where I am with all this

The above was written by a colleague back in 2007 and is provided here for your Googling entertainment. I don't have a 64-bit Linux node to play with this so can't comment on it's veracity.

Updates below posted when people send them to me, without comment.

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21 March 2009

Email from reader Tarun Kothuri:

Just for your information :

With the release of Sun Java 6 Update 12, there is an official 64bit browser plugin for java.

I have been trying to get Juniper VPN (Client v6.0.0) to work by launching Network Connect via 64bit browser/Java plugin. It starts off installing well, but somehow the connection fails and i don't see the connection dialog.

I am still troubleshooting (on Fedora Core 10), installed various 32 bit libraries including, compat-libstdc++ 3.3 & 296, , zlib x86, xterm....

After some more searching I found a script at http://mad-scientist.us/juniper.html which is pretty successful at launching network connect once the files have been copied onto the system.

Just had to install some dependencies and create a copy of a 32bit JVM solely for invoking this program. (my system wide JRE and browser plugin are still 64bit).

23 January 2012

Email from Dan Kegal:

For what it's worth, here's a script to solve that problem using a chroot jail; it's specific to Ubuntu 11.10, and uses almost a gigabyte of disk space, but what the heck, maybe it's still worth mentioning.

http://kegel.com/linux/web32.sh.txt