Cisco VPN, Parallels and 10.4.8

D

darkwing

Bit poster
The following was posted to LookSmart Furl on September 12:

Also on the menu is a bit of a quirky detail about two pieces of software that apparently aren't playing well together: Apple warns that running Cisco VPN and Parallels Desktop, at least on their latest 10.4.8 builds, can make Mac OS X fall down and go boom (read: kernel panic) There is no word as to whether this will be fixed by the time 10.4.8 is released into the wild.

Well, I can tell you that it has not been fixed. Crashed so bad that I had to do an archive and install back to 10.4.6 on my MacBook Pro. Now I am faced with a bad choice ... either use the VPN or Parallels ... and that is a choice I don't want to have to make.

Any idea what's at issue here and if/when a fix can be expected?

Stephen

Parallels v 1920
macBook Pro 17" 2.16 ghx 2g RAM
 
darkwing said:
The following was posted to LookSmart Furl on September 12:

Also on the menu is a bit of a quirky detail about two pieces of software that apparently aren't playing well together: Apple warns that running Cisco VPN and Parallels Desktop, at least on their latest 10.4.8 builds, can make Mac OS X fall down and go boom (read: kernel panic) There is no word as to whether this will be fixed by the time 10.4.8 is released into the wild.

Well, I can tell you that it has not been fixed. Crashed so bad that I had to do an archive and install back to 10.4.6 on my MacBook Pro. Now I am faced with a bad choice ... either use the VPN or Parallels ... and that is a choice I don't want to have to make.

Any idea what's at issue here and if/when a fix can be expected?

Stephen

Parallels v 1920
macBook Pro 17" 2.16 ghx 2g RAM
Click to expand...
I'm using the latest build, 1922, and Cisco VPN Version 4.9.00 (0050) installed on OS-X version 10.4.8, and Cisco VPN Version 4.8.01.0300 installed on Windows XP Pro and it's working fine.
 
Last edited:
darkwing,

The problem with Parallels & Cisco VPN on 10.4.8 is that Cisco VPN crashes if you do
/System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN restart
This command will crash OSX even if Parallels is not installed. Parallels needs to restart CiscoVPN from /Library/StartupItems/Parallels/Parallels after installing Parallels Host-Guest network adapter to get Cisco working afterwards.

If you absolutely need to run both on 10.4.8 and you can sacrifice Host-Only networking mode you can do the following:
First install Parallels and edit /Library/StartupItems/Parallels/Parallels script removing Cisco restart command and kextload for Pvsvnic. Now install CiscoVPN client.
 
I started the latest release of Parallels on my machine, and reloaded the kext for the cisco vpn client for mac as described and had no issues, either with or w/o parallels running. I'm running 10.4.8 and the same version of the cisco vpn client as described (4.9.00 0050)

*shrug*
 
I would just like to point out that, for many if not all of you, you can connect to Cisco VPNs using Internet Connect. I don't know under what configurations it wouldn't work, but it does for me and I've totally removed the Cisco client from my Mac.

Open Internet Connect, add a PPTP VPN, enter your VPN host, your user name and password and connect. It may be a bit flakey making the connection and you may have to attempt connection several times, but it always connects (for me) eventually.
 
I'll have to give the VPN support in Internet Connection another try now that 10.4.8 is out. All prior versions failed to work, thus requiring the awful Cisco VPN client. The working config (in Cisco client) is IPsec over UDP through a NAT using a RSA token for login. With Internet Connection in prior OS versions, I try L2TP over IPsec and setup all the authentication, but trying to connect it just sits for a bit and says it couldn't contact the server.
 
MatthewR said:
I'll have to give the VPN support in Internet Connection another try now that 10.4.8 is out. All prior versions failed to work, thus requiring the awful Cisco VPN client. The working config (in Cisco client) is IPsec over UDP through a NAT using a RSA token for login. With Internet Connection in prior OS versions, I try L2TP over IPsec and setup all the authentication, but trying to connect it just sits for a bit and says it couldn't contact the server.
Click to expand...
L2TP doesn't work. At all. Ever. Try PPTP.
 
OK ... taking my life in my hands :rolleyes: , I deleted Cisco and reinstalled Parallels ... then 10.4.8 ... restarted and all was well ... added Cisco back and so far, it is still working ... so it looks like I can confirm that Cisco VPN Client 4.9 now works on a MacBook Pro after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.8. I have Parallels 2.2 build 1922 with WinXP Pro installed and running fine on the MacBook Pro, so there no longer appears to be a conflict between Cisco VPN Client and Parallels Desktop.
 
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