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Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) VPN PPTP issues

Ubuntu 8.10 has, as mentioned, been a sub-optimal release for me. 8.04 made EVERYTHING work perfectly after relatively little twiddling. 8.10 broke it all again. The latest annoyance is a set of bugs and feature-losses in network-manage-pptp which allows me to connect to Windows-based VPN networks, a frequent occurrence as several clients use them because they are a lot cheaper than Cisco and pretty easy to set up.

In 8.04, the package allowed you to REFUSE-EAP. In 8.10 you have to use gconf to change it, but even then it doesn't work unless you install the proposed fix, you still loose the ability to specify ranges of addresses that you DO and DO NOT want sent through the tunnel. And if you set the password in the "CREATE CONNECTION" dialog then it will inexplicably fail (just leave it blank and it will ask for it).

To specify the ranges, you can use "sudo route" from the command line.

  1. First type "sudo route" before connecting to find out what your default route is.
  2. Then use the VPN connection, it will change your default route. You can verify by running the route command again.
  3. Delete this default route by typing "sudo route del default".
  4. Add your original route (for me this is "sudo route add default gateway 192.168.5.1" as this is our wireless router in the building).
  5. Then add your private network route such as: "sudo route add -net 192.168.1.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 dev ppp0". This example would route all 192.168.1.* addresses through the ppp0 tunnel (the pptp vpn). Annoying I know.

The Hardy dialog let you say things like 192.168.1.0/24 in the dialog and automatically did all of this without you thinking or trying. Not sure why Intrepid made this thing less functional with no obvious new features.