Mac Geeks

I’ve got MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard) on my MacBook Pro and use the Cisco VPN-Client very frequently. Basically this works great. But from time to time the VPN-Client software refuses loading because it can’t connect to the VPN subsystem in the MacOS kernel. Showing nothing but this ugly error message.

Until today when I further experimented with the system the only way to get the client working again was reinstalling the software. This only takes a few seconds and doesn’t require a restart. But is annoying anyhow.

But now I found a better workaround, not a solution though. Obviously the MacOS kernel extension doesn’t seem to work when the client shows this error message. So the easiest way should be to simply reload it.

I investigated the following procedure to reload the Cisco VPN kernel extension and make the VPN client work again:

1. Open the Terminal
2. become Superuser: sudo su -
3. go to the kernel extension directory: cd /System/Library/Extensions
4. unload the CiscoVPN.kext: kextunload CiscoVPN.kext
5. load the CiscoVPN.kext again: kextload CiscoVPN.kext
6. your done. The client should work now

[Update 15.12.2007]:
Today I found an update for the Cisco VPN Client on www.macupdate.com
Cisco released the new version on Dec. 6th 2007. The release notes simply state the following:

Posted: 06 December 2007
Revision: Release 4.9.01.0100
Files: vpnclient-darwin-4.9.01.0100-universal-k9.dmg

Features:
This release adds support for Mac OS X 10.5

Resolved Issues:
CSCsd51157 unity mac ppp not dynamically discovered consistently on 10.4

Unresolved Issues:
None
Previous revision: 4.9.01.0080

[Update 17.12.2007]
So the new client didn’t helped with the above problem. I still got the error from time to time. But reloading the kernel extension still works.

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