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KarimElsayad247's avatar
KarimElsayad247
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Feb 21, 2023

Problem with connecting using f5 vpn on Ubuntu/Linux; stuck on "Connecting..."

This issue happens only on the machine I'm using, I treid the same account on multiple other machines, on the same network and other networks. The gist of it is that f5vpn gets stuck in the connectin...
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Lucas_Thompson's avatar
Lucas_Thompson
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Feb 23, 2023

Hmm. From those logs, it seems like it's actually connected. From the syslog you pasted though, there do seem to be a few errors from QT. The client uses QT to write the messages into the client GUI. Perhaps you could try to reinstall it, and dbus-daemon.

Is this something that you think we could reproduce in a lab on a fresh ubuntu system, or is it something that seems tied to this client PC specifically?

  • KarimElsayad247's avatar
    KarimElsayad247
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    Feb 23, 2023

    I can't think of anyway to reproduce it. I probably somehow modified something on my system, because it works on every other device I tried. In fact, it event works inside a docker container running on my system. I just found out this weird thing:

    - If I attach the container to host network, f5vpn won't connect

    - If I DON'T attach the container to host network, f5vpn WILL connect

    So, in the case where it connects from within the container, I again modified the routes table to point the specific ips configured by f5vpn to the container itself, but even though my traffic goes through and I can actually reach those few websites, I still can't receive callbacks from a particular remote server like I can if I connected. 

    Does f5vpn/Big IP somehow check if the source ip is something it has registered? I don't have any idea what happens on the provider side.  

    I can't think of any solution short of nuking my ubunut and re-installing it. I haven't tried reinstalling dbus, I'm afraid of breaking something else in my system, since it seems like a sensitive service.

    As for Qt, I haven't tried reinstalling it yet, but the few errors it prints are identical to those printed in systems where it worked. 

    Oh, and apologies, I forgot to mention that I'm running vpn version 7220.2022.0308.1, thought it seems like the most recent version anyway. 

     

    Are there any configuration, software versions, firewall rules, etc... you wish to take a look at?

    • KarimElsayad247's avatar
      KarimElsayad247
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      Feb 23, 2023

      Oh, and f5vpn brings its own Qt libraries along as it seems. They are stored in /opt/f5/vpn/lib

       

      $ ls /opt/f5/vpn/lib
      libcrypto.so.1.0.0 libicui18n.so.55 libQt5Core.so.5 libQt5Gui.so.5 libQt5OpenGL.so.5 libQt5Sql.so.5 libQt5WebKitWidgets.so.5 libQt5XcbQpa.so.5
      libicudata.so.55 libicuuc.so.55 libQt5DBus.so.5 libQt5Network.so.5 libQt5PrintSupport.so.5 libQt5WebKit.so.5 libQt5Widgets.so.5 libssl.so.1.0.0

       

      • Lucas_Thompson's avatar
        Lucas_Thompson
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        Feb 23, 2023

        I wonder if this does have to do with routing, and maybe once the VPN is connected it interrupts the routing table: Can you try to create another VPN resource on the BIG-IP server that is set for split-tunnel but use a different small IP address range, like 10.0.0.0/24 and a lease-pool within that network. Maybe the connection will behave differently on a different routing subnet and/or not a full-routing tunnel.