What is the current approach for chromebook + vpn?

[aseques]

We are testing chromebooks as replacement for some PCs on our network, on first sight I saw that they appeared at the forticlient.com site, but after downloading the extension I see that it's only a webfiltering extension.

What are the current methods for connecting?

[ul]

Chromebooks support some vpn applications ( Pulse Secure VPN, SonicWALL Mobile Connect, Cisco AnyConnect ,F5 Access, GlobalProtect) but not fortigate.

L2TP/ipsec and openvpn are both natively supported (I won't use pptp)

Are there any applications to install that can connect to forticlient sslvpn (even if they aren't from fortigate?)[/ul]

[jehadjam]

Many modern chromebooks support android apps and I have been using the android app successfully.  The one big problem with that is you have to leave the app open because if you close (thanks to what I believe is a transition animation that is not compatible with chomeos) the app you have to reboot the device to get back into it again.

[aseques]

At the moment we don't have any chromebook compatible with android, so I can't test this feature. So far we have been using the chrome remote desktop. It can be centrally managed if you have G Suite account, and is far more user friendly that any other solution I could found.

Still something nicer would be great.

[jehadjam]

I've never used g suite and I only have a chromebook for personal use but I wouldn't think using Chrome Remote Desktop is a very secure solution since you could probably easily brute force since its a 6 digit(?) code to gain access.

Chromebooks in general don't have good VPN support and prior to the availability of android apps I was using crouton with a linux desktop app for connectivity which you clearly cant do in your environment.

I think chrome OS will gain better support as it matures with the newest ones even supporting linux apps directly.

[aseques]

To be using the chrome desktop support the user has either to accept your request or you connecting to your own machine (but having already authenticated with google)

I agree with you about the second part, let's see if how it evolves, clearly the ipsec vpn route is not very practical because it's hard to setup.