Making a VPN connection

[Member buddy1812]

This is my first post on this forum.

A bit about me, I am extremely new to Linux but have used computers since punch card days. So getting my hands dirty in the system is OK 🙂

After looking at the different distros I have settled on antiX. Super job guys !!!!! My Dell Workstation was never this quiet.

When I tried out live versions of the various other distros I was always able to access Genome connection manager to test out making an OPENVPN connection. If GCM was not in the default setup I had no issue to install it and have it show up in the tray. Unfortunately it did not work out so well with antiX. That was a challenge I gladly (well almost) took on.

Using Uncle Google I found enough information on the NET to where I can now make the VPN connection running the nm-applet using MENU –> RUN in ROOT mode. All is great. So what is my problem ?

1) I have no clue how to have this applet start at StartUp.
2) Is there a way to make a OPENVPN connection using CENI ? Looking at the screen it was not obvious.
3) Would WICD do the job ? Again, looking at what was there led me to think no.

Regards
Henry

[Moderator caprea]

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Hi,
so you installed network-manager and network-manager-gnome, if I understood right.
https://www.antixforum.com/network-manager-available-in-antix-repos/
To make the nm-applet show up in the tray at startup
just put

nm-applet &

at the bottom of your hidden .desktop-session/startup file in home.
You can do this eg. by opening in control-centre~~session~~desktop session user
Close and save the startup-file.

I have no experience with vpn, but as far as I know you probably need the network-manger.

[Member buddy1812]

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Hi Caprea

Yes, that did it.

My question 2) and 3) don’t require an answer as GCM take care of everything.

Setting up a VPN connection is almost dead simple using GCM.

Thank You 🙂

[Member DaveW]

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Caprea, I followed the instructions that you gave to buddy1812. All is well. But I note, in the link that you mentioned, there is instruction to remove all lines from etc/network/interfaces file except the first three shown below. The contents of my file is as shown. What negative effect is there, if the other six lines remain? Thank you, Dave

# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug eth2
iface eth2 inet dhcp

[Moderator caprea]

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DaveW , NM evaluates the file /etc/network/interfaces and the devices configured there , in your case eth0,eth1,eth2 , are not managed by network-manager anymore.

[Member DaveW]

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Caprea,
Thank you for jogging my thinker.
My normal usage for VPN is limited to WiFi, so my noggin skipped over the need for NM to manage the wired connection, too.

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