VPN under WINE[SOLVED]

Message

Budoka · Post by **Budoka** » Sat Mar 15, 2014 10:57 am

Is it possible to run a VPN using wine?

I have found that many VPN services that do not provide OpenVPN config files to use under Linux so am trying to use one of them in wine. I was able to successfully install and launch a particular VPN service using wine, Surfeasy VPN, but it does not see a network connection even though other apps in wine do. Any ideas how to get it to see my wifi and eth0 connections? Also will my entire box run through the VPN or only apps running under wine?

Thanks

Post by Hu » Sat Mar 15, 2014 3:51 pm

I doubt this would work for the same reason that Wine cannot run most DRM-restricted games. VPNs need kernel level support for obtaining the outbound traffic. Some Linux VPNs, such as OpenVPN, use the generic Linux TUN/TAP driver to get the traffic instead of inventing their own interface, but that is still kernel support. You could probably run the Windows-based configuration GUI under Wine.

Budoka · Post by **Budoka** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 4:52 am

Hu wrote:I doubt this would work for the same reason that Wine cannot run most DRM-restricted games. VPNs need kernel level support for obtaining the outbound traffic. Some Linux VPNs, such as OpenVPN, use the generic Linux TUN/TAP driver to get the traffic instead of inventing their own interface, but that is still kernel support. You could probably run the Windows-based configuration GUI under Wine.

Hu,

Thanks for the reply. I was following you right up until the point you said: "You could probably run the Windows-based configuration GUI under Wine."

Sorry if it wasn't clear in my initial post but that is what I did. The application runs no problem...it just doesn't see the network connection.

The first part of your reply left me thinking that it isn't possible but then the last part sounds like it is possible?

Thanks

Post by Hu » Sun Mar 16, 2014 5:24 pm

A VPN can be logically divided into at least two parts. One part does the work of receiving the traffic from the OS, wrapping it in the VPN transport protocol, and sending the wrapped packets to the VPN server. The other part does the work of presenting a pretty GUI to the user to set any available knobs, report any summary data provided by the transport layer, etc. I mean that the second part should be a pretty simple Windows application that you could run under Wine. However, unless the configuration tool can read in saved configuration files, let you edit them, and write the modified versions out, running it is useless, because you cannot run the transport layer process under Wine. Without the transport layer process, you will not be able to send any traffic over the VPN.

Budoka · Post by **Budoka** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:51 am

Hu wrote:A VPN can be logically divided into at least two parts. One part does the work of receiving the traffic from the OS, wrapping it in the VPN transport protocol, and sending the wrapped packets to the VPN server. The other part does the work of presenting a pretty GUI to the user to set any available knobs, report any summary data provided by the transport layer, etc. I mean that the second part should be a pretty simple Windows application that you could run under Wine. However, unless the configuration tool can read in saved configuration files, let you edit them, and write the modified versions out, running it is useless, because you cannot run the transport layer process under Wine. Without the transport layer process, you will not be able to send any traffic over the VPN.

Thanks. That was very clear and provided the information I was seeking.

dwickle · Post by **dwickle** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:41 am

You might want to check out Crossover for Linux (commercially maintained wine) as it may just work. They have a like a 15 or 30 day trial license so you could at least test it out.

They definitely do support other VPN Clients.

It's worth noting that if it does work and you let your license expire then it's likely they'll send you offers for 40% off the purchase price (code: SPECIAL40 ). I tested it once for SmartDashboard and was surprised to see it actually works. I hear Cedaga also worked but that's dead now.