[vpn-help] Mac OSX VPN Client Testing ...

[Matthew Grooms]

On 11/21/2012 8:37 PM, Kevin VPN wrote:
>
> Hi Dorothea,
>
> Yes, those are the latest instructions to install on Mac OS X, but there
> are some caveats.
>
> First, Qt has been upgraded to 4.8 and I don't think the Shrew Soft VPN
> client build is completely compatible.  I wasn't able to get it working.
>
> Secondly, on one version of OS X, the Shrew Soft VPN client install
> accidentally overwrote the symbolic link to the the /etc directory,
> making the system unusable after a reboot.  (Fortunately I was able to
> repair it using the OS X install CD filesystem repair.)
>
> My experiences recently with this build of the client have been so
> variable and dangerous that I've stopped installing at this time.  I'm
> waiting for an updated build.

Kevin,

I actually hadn't noticed that /etc is a symlink to /private/etc. Is it 
that way on all versions of OSX or is that just a Lion thing? The pkg 
system I use is Iceburg. Initially we started out with the Apple Xcode 
packaging software, but it was so awfully buggy I had to go with the 
alternative. It's configured to copy the file into /etc so I'm not sure 
why it would overwrite the symlink. But if that's the normal directory 
structure, it could be installed to /private/etc instead. I'm by no 
means an OSX expert, so I'm not sure if that would be the right thing to 
do or not.

I've actually been working on the OSX port over the last few days. My 
development machine has been upgraded to Mountain Lion and I managed to 
build a minimal Qt for the VPN client to link against. The Core/Gui lib 
frameworks are then included with the installer now so folks won't have 
to install the 230 meg Qt development distribution in the future. The 
tun/tap driver is still a pre-requisite. The last thing I wanted to sort 
out was the DNS. The /etc/resolv.conf is ignored on later versions of 
OSX, so I need to figure out a good programmatic way to configure that 
information using the updated resolver mechanism.

In any case, I should have a new dmg file uploaded in a day or two. I 
will let the list know when that happens.

Thanks,

-Matthew