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aseques
New Contributor

What is the current approach for chromebook + vpn?

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]
  • 4 REPLIES 4
    jehadjam
    New Contributor

    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.

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