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Ubuntu & relakks.com ?

Note: The issues I was having with Relakks have been solved, please see the two updates below.

Ladies and gents,

My operating system is Ubuntu (7.04 7.10). I connect to the internet using Network Manager to my home wireless router (a Netgear WGR614v5) which is in turn hooked up to my cable modem.

I recently read about the relakks.com service which I would like to use, here is a quote from their website:

Service Description - RELAKKS Safe Surf
The Service consists of an encrypted VPN tunnel between your computer and RELAKKS. The IP-number you receive from your existing ISP is only used to connect your computer to RELAKKS,from there on RELAKKS substitute your existing IP-number with a new IP-number from RELAKKS. This gives you a number of advantages:

· Your existing ISP will not be able to intercept and track your applications or communication
· Your existing ISP can not limit what you can do nor limit what information you can access
· Other organizations or individuals can’t intercept or track your applications or communication.

Similar services have been available on the Internet for some time, but this is the first time you can get all the advantages without any drawback.

So, do any Ubuntu users have experience with this service? How do I set it up? Does it work through my wireless set-up?

A thread about connecting to a VPN service at the ubuntu forums has left me completely confused.

Please help,
Thanks.

Update 13 September 2007

After a lot of research I finally managed to connect my Ubuntu machine to the relakks.com vpn service, I followed the information in this post at ubuntuforums. I have reproduced it here for you and edited it for GNOME users:

First, make sure Network Manager, vpnc, network-manager-vpnc, network-manager-pptp and pptp-linux are installed through Synaptic Package Manager or whatever package manager you prefer. Once it's installed, right click on the Network manger icon in the system tray. It looks like the plug of an Ethernet cable or if you are on wireless it will be health bars. Go to VPN Connections and select Configure VPN. Add a new connection.

Choose the following options:

Under Connection:
Connection Name: Relakks
Type: Windows (VPN) PPTP
Gateway: pptp.relakks.com

Under Authentication:
Of the options check only "Refuse EAP".
("Refuse Chap" "Refuse MS Chap" and "Authenticate Peer" should all be unchecked).

Under Compression & Encryption:
ONLY CHECK "Require 128 bit MPPE encryption"

Under PPP Options:

Check:

"Use Peer DNS"
"Exclusive Device Access (UUPC Style lock)"

For the following fields:

MTU 1400
MRU 1416
lcp-echo-failure 10
lcp-echo-interval 10

Under Routing:

Check:

"Peer DNS through Tunnel"

Then restart Ubuntu. You should now see an entry called Relakks in Network Manager under VPN Connections. Click on it and a window should pop up asking for your Relakks username and password.

Good luck

Update 12 January 2008

If you are having trouble connecting to Relakks using Network Manager when you are in wireless mode then the following solution should help:

edit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistant-net.rules

change it from this:

# This file was automatically generated by the /lib/udev/write_net_rules
# program, probably run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single line.

# PCI device 0x10ec:0x8139 (8139too)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="**:**:**:**:**:**", NAME="eth1"

# PCI device 0x8086:0x4223 (ipw2200)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="**:**:**:**:**:**", NAME="eth0"

to this:

# This file was automatically generated by the /lib/udev/write_net_rules
# program, probably run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single line.

# PCI device 0x10ec:0x8139 (8139too)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="**:**:**:**:**:**", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x8086:0x4223 (ipw2200)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="**:**:**:**:**:**", NAME="eth1"