If you are a student at the University of Bergen (UiB), you might have discovered that UiB now uses Cisco AnyConnect instead of their own, self-hosted alternative like before. Personally, I find the Cisco AnyConnect app to be very privacy invading, demaing all these different privileges… so I started looking for alternatives. Luckily, I found an open-source alternative, OpenConnect.

# Step 1: Installation

Firstly, you need to install OpenConnect.

Linux 
sudo apt update && sudo apt install openconnect
macOS 
brew install openconnect
Windows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mabye try to use git-bash or something, I really don’t know.

# Step 2: Creating an alias (shortcut)

To save yourself from writing a long command everytime you need to use the VPN, we can create an alias.

This will depend of which shell you are using, I am using ZSH, but the steps are similar for BASH as well.

  1. nano ~/.zshrc
    • .bashrc if you are using BASH
  2. Paste this at the end of the file, and change the username:
    • alias vpn="sudo openconnect --user=abc001 vpn3.uib.no"
  3. To save and exit out of nano, press CTRL+X and then Y (for yes) and then Enter to write the changes.
  4. Run source .zshrc

You should now be able to run the command vpn to connect to UiB VPN.

# Step 3: How to use

  1. Run vpn
  2. Input your computer-password
  3. Input your UiB password
  4. (Optional) Input your Microsoft 2FA code
  5. Sucess!

# Disconnecting

Press CTRL+C

# Suggestions and/or questions

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!