I ran into an issue a couple of months ago where the CPA of one of my customers was having trouble using the NetScreen VPN client ( to talk to my customer's network ) and a Cisco VPN client ( to talk to another customer ) using the same workstation.

I finally traced the issue down to the fact that both VPN clients use different services to perform encryption and other security functions.  Furthermore, the different services can't be running at the same time because they provide a singular function on the computer and the first one to host that particular function wins – and prevents another service from running and providing that function.

Once I figured out it was a services issue, it was just a matter of time until I traced down what company used what service. 

Next, I created two batch files to start and stop the relevant services and launch the required VPN client.

start_cisco.bat:

NET STOP IREIKE
NET STOP IPSECMON
NET START POLICYAGENT
NET START CVPND
[ insert vpn client executable here ]

 

start_netscreen.bat

NET STOP POLICYAGENT
NET STOP CVPND
NET START IREIKE
NET START IPSECMON
[insert vpn client executable here]

 

Finally, I created two shortcuts on the desktop to launch the above batch files. 

 

12 Responses to Running NetScreen and Cisco VPN clients on the same workstation

  1. srg says:

    This was excellent! Both NetScreen and Cisco now work flawlessly on my machine. Thank you ver much for the easy to use step by step instructions.

  2. Denny says:

    I got the services to stop and start and I get the Cisco VPN to connect, but when i try and ping any computers inside the Cisco established VPN – I cannot. The netscreen works fine.

    Anybody? Thanks.

  3. Zen says:

    Excellent work!!

  4. James Whittington says:

    Thanks for figuring this one out, that Netscreen VPN client is really Evil from a forced reboot of the workstation to killing cisco vpn services. But I guess I'm stuck with whatever vpn access a customer can provide to his network.

  5. BL says:

    Thanks, really nice post!!!

  6. vijay says:

    hi,

    I am not able to install cisco vpn client when netscreen client already install on PC.

    Its asking to remove older version or netscreen.

    please help

  7. Philip George says:

    Thats fantastic ! Its become a piece of cake !
    Great job !

  8. Allen says:

    Woo! This saved me a ton of heartache. Good job!

  9. Kwass says:

    Thank You – it was veeeery helpfull

  10. Yes. You should be able to do this. Just simply connect to your work VPN as usual while inside the VM. The host (your main desktop) will remain unaffected.

  11. Thankful Guy says:

    This worked like a charm. Thanks for the post.

  12. Thankful Guy says:

    I was in the process of doing the same thing. Discovering which services needed to be stopped. You saved me some time. Thanks again.

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