As much as I like the Cisco VPN client for Linux, it’s got its share of issues that need to be addressed with a variety of patches, even with Ubuntu 11.10.  That’s why this time around, I decided to use the same VPN client I’ve been using on Windows, with great success, on my Ubuntu 11.04 x64 laptop.  That being said, head on over to Shrew Soft and download the latest and greatest copy of the source code, currently at 2.2.0-beta-2.  Unzip/untar it to the directory of your choice and before you get all crazy and compile it, grab the following from the repositories:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential
$ sudo apt-get install flex bison cmake libssl-dev libbsd-dev libedit-dev libqt4-dev

Once you’ve done that, head on over to your exploded source code directory and type the following:

$ cd ike
$ cmake -DETCDIR=/etc -DNATT=YES -DQTGUI=YES
$ make
$ sudo make install

Everything should have compiled correctly, so now it’s time to update the run-time bindings:

$ sudo ldconfig

Copy the sample ‘iked’ configuration file as the actual configuration file:

$ sudo cp /etc/iked.conf.sample /etc/iked.conf

Finally, start up the IKE daemon and you’ll see the following:

$ sudo iked
ii : created ike socket 0.0.0.0:500
ii : created natt socket 0.0.0.0:4500
## : IKE Daemon, ver 2.2.0
## : Copyright 2009 Shrew Soft Inc.
## : This product linked OpenSSL 1.0.0e 6 Sep 2011

Fire up the graphical front-end like so:

$ qikea

And you’ll be greeted with the ShrewSoft VPN Access Manager screen:

If GUIs are your kryptonite, then copy your VPN client configuration file/certs to ~/.ike/{sites,certs} and fire it up like so:

$ ikec
ii : ## : VPN Connect, ver 2.2.0
## : Copyright 2009 Shrew Soft Inc.
## : press the <h> key for help
!! : invalid parameters specified ...
>> : ikec -r "name" [ -u <user> ][ -p <pass> ][ -a ]
 -r site configuration path
 -u connection user name
 -p connection user password
 -a auto connect