F5 Firepass VPN and safari

Hi Richard,

I am having the same issue but no luck with firefox. The plugin hangs and crashes or I have an issue with the install similar to Safari. Which version of Firefox are you using and do you need to do anything special to get Firefox to work with Firepass? Thanks, M

Thanks for the Firefox suggestion. I'm also able to successfully connect. However, a small problem I encounter every time I try to terminate my connection is that I get a kernel panic. Any ideas?

I'm having a similar issue. I keep getting prompted to install the plugin with safari. Firefox was initially able to connect to firepass but then I get a kernel panic, sometimes when the connection is terminated and sometimes earlier.

What do F5 have to say?

Clearly this sounds like a compatibility issue between their VPN agent and Snow Leopard- not surprising given the relatively low-level that the VPN runs at.

Juniper had the same issue with their SSL VPN solution, which requires version 6.5 of their software to work with Snow Leopard.

My IT department is still waiting to hear from F5...

I'm having the same problems and Firefox doesn't work for me either. I've reverted to connecting from my Windows XP VWware Fusion instance, but even this is a bit problematic. My connection keeps locking up every few minutes which is very annoying. I would love to hear if anyone has a solution, but I expect we'll have to wait until a fix to the plugin is provided.

It will work if you force Safari to load in 32-bit Mode. Right/Command Click on the Safari app, Chose Get Info and check the "Open in 32-bit mode" checkbox.

32 bit mode makes it possible to connect with Safari, thanks!

however I keep getting kernel panic when terminating the connection.
anybody has luck with avoiding the kernel panic?

SSL VPN is working on my MacBook Pro only via Firefox 3.0 (crash in 32-bit Safari), but only the first time. On the second attempt I get a kernel panic. However, when I restart the network after closing the SSL VPN connection it seems to work. Never got a kernel panic again. Here's the AppleScript I'm using:

on run
do shell script "
sudo ifconfig en0 down
sudo ifconfig en1 down
sudo ifconfig en0 up
sudo ifconfig en1 up
"
end run

I am wondering how to implement this workaround: how do I restart the network after I get the kernel panic ? I close the connection and then the kernel panic occurs and I need to reboot first.

After a reboot I get a VPN connection without any problems (using Firefox - nowaday also using Safari but I have to ignore some nasty error messages). However, when I close the VPN connection and try to connect later on I get kernel panic. Therfore I run this script manually directly after closing the VPN connection (no need to close safari or firefox windows) and since then I never got a kernel panic anymore.

It's not very elegant, I know, but I have to survive somehow until my company has installed a fix. In the F5 forum support for snow leopard has been "announced" (see http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&view=topic&postid=62063&forumid=4 &tpage=1). We'll see.

BTW: In the meantime my script looks this way (to handle also my UMTS Stick connections via ppp0):

on run
do shell script "
sudo ifconfig en0 down
sudo ifconfig en1 down
sudo ifconfig ppp0 down
sudo ifconfig en0 up
sudo ifconfig en1 up
sudo ifconfig ppp0 up
"
end run

anub, thank you! As you said, not too elegant but it works!

I found this link on another Apple forum thread to a standalone F5 client http://fuhm.net/software/f5vpn-login/

Worked like a charm and now I don't have to tie up a browser for VPN

Hi calculi72
Thank you very much for this link. This is really cool and works perfectly!