Saturday, November 3, 2012

Install Shrew Soft VPN Client for Mac OS X

Shrew Soft have a Mac OSX port of the VPN client based on the head ( 2.2.x ) sources. It seems that it requires more testing, but it appears to be more or less stable.

There are two requirements / dependency before running the native
install package (.dmg file)

1) Install the LGPL Qt Framework for Mac OSX.

http://get.qt.nokia.com/qt/source/qt-mac-opensource-4.7.1.dmg

Update:

If the above link no longer work, use this:

http://files.linux-addicted.net/qtproject/archive/qt/4.7/qt-mac-opensource-4.7.1.dmg

2) Install the current release of the TUN/TAP driver for Mac OSX.

http://tuntaposx.sourceforge.net/download.xhtml

3. The finally, install the Shrew Soft VPN client.

http://www.shrew.net/download/vpn/vpn-client-install.dmg

You should now find the VPN Access manager in the Application folder.


This have been tested to work on Lion and Mountain Lion.
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20 comments:

Unknown said...

You're welcome, hope it helped you.

Unknown said...

It helped me - thanks for it :)

As a supplement: after installing tun/tap driver, you need restart machine, or:
sudo /Library/StartupItems/tun/tun start
sudo /Library/StartupItems/tap/tap start

:)

Srenteria said...

Would you know why my computer fails to open it?

Srenteria said...

?

mattiaswa said...

I just followed the steps and installed the packages described. I didn't get it to work so i decided to fallback to the "build in" vpn client in osx. But now that does not work anymore. Looking in the /var/log/system.log I see rows like:

ec 11 10:50:49 My-MacBook-Air.local racoon[692]: failed to bind to address 10.0.0.34

(10.0.0.34 is my current IP). Any idea what might have changed during the installation?

mattiaswa said...

I just followed the steps and installed the packages described. I didn't get it to work so i decided to fallback to the "build in" vpn client in osx. But now that does not work anymore. Looking in the /var/log/system.log I see rows like:

ec 11 10:50:49 My-MacBook-Air.local racoon[692]: failed to bind to address 10.0.0.34

(10.0.0.34 is my current IP). Any idea what might have changed during the installation?

Unknown said...

I had problems because I installed the latest v5 of QT, I then installed the latest v4, but unfortunately it's not compiled for the correct architecture type, so, I removed all the QT folders in /Library/Frameworks and then installed the version 4.7.1 dmg from http://download.qt-project.org/archive/qt/4.7/qt-mac-opensource-4.7.1.dmg

Note that the link to Nokia didn't work for me today - just a blank page, hence the previous link.

Ta,
Rob.

Johanna said...

Thanks for your Blog.

Let me make two remarks:

1) The posted link for the Qt library didn't work. But Qt 4.7 also can be found here:
http://files.linux-addicted.net/qtproject/archive/qt/4.7/qt-mac-opensource-4.7.1.dmg

2) Qt 4.8 or newer does not work. There you'd get an error like
"no suitable image found. Did find [...]: mach-o, but
wrong architecture"
It definitively must by version 4.7.x.

Thanks
Johanna

Unknown said...

@ Johanna, Thanks for the valuable additional info. Replaced the original link with the new one.

PloughGuy said...

These installation instructions supply version 2.2.0.

I have tested it on Mavericks with the following result:
- Shrew starts
- It does not crash
- But in my case, it does not connect when using a .vpn file that works with Shrew in Windows.

Ergo, it would seem that it does not work.
I am trying to build 2.2.1, but so far without success.

PloughGuy said...

I have tried to build 2.2.1 for Mavericks as a replacement for step three - no joy to be had.

attached to key daemon ...
peer config failed
detached from key daemon

Shrew.net has not done anything since July 1 2013. Perhaps they (or he) got a day job...
Looks like I have to resort to VMWARE and a windows license. My stars, that is going to be expensive...

enz0 said...

Still works on mavericks!!!

Unknown said...

Just updated from Mavericks where it worked to Yosemite and it no longer works.

May try re-installing all the components in sequence.

Unknown said...

Still works on Yosemite. I had to re-install the various elements.

Unknown said...

anyone tested on yosemite??

Unknown said...

anyone tested on yosemite???

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

I managed to make it work on yosemite however you have to:
1) tell the kernel to allow unsigned extensions
sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"
2) load the extensions manually since the autoload from startupitems does not work anymore
sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/tun.kext
sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/tap.kext

Unknown said...

So nice job. Present very need this security for every person..
vpn on mac

Unknown said...

Francesco Lamonica's comment is pure gold! i could not get mine to work until i followed both directions. They should be added to the instructions!