“Signed, El Capitan. I don’t know who this El Capitan is, but I sure like his style.”
Scrooge McDuck in “Duck Tales” (TV show, 1987)
Recipe updated: September, 6th, 2016
When we got to upgrade our Macbook Pro to the all new Mac OS X 10.11, we surely liked its slick new style and interface improvements. And what not to like. The only drawback was that our Shrew Soft VPN client has fallen victim of the new ship commander. Cries from “Shrew that!” to the odious “À l’abordage!“ did not help; our online search mission was going for days without a single sight of solid land. Until when we stumbled upon a recent comment from user MIKE under this German blog post that suddenly looked promising.
While we have to admit that our German is still “unterdurchschnittlich”, please find the translated recipe with explanations how it worked for us:
- One prerequisite is that you need to have Ruby programming language installed on your Mac. That is not covered under this recipe. Ours was probably installed with Apple’s XCode Command Line Developer Tools. So it just worked.
- Once you have ruby, the step is to download and install Homebrew packet manager. That requires entering shell commands in a Terminal window. They suggested following line that should be executed under a regular user id (e.g. NOT as root):
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" /dev/nullNote: unfortunately, that command did not work for us. We chose to download install script into our home folder separately using the link above and then simply ran it with ruby:
ruby install - Then everything went smoothly. Installing Shrew Soft VPN client:
brew install shrewsoft-vpn-clientNote: it was brought to our attention that since last year the VPN package has been removed from brew’s repository for unknown reason. If you need a copy for your install, we are posting a link here to download that package from our website: http://nubisnovem.com/files/shrewsoft-vpn-client-2.2.1.tbz2
Also, one of the visitors of our website was kind enough to provide following solution:
You can get the shrewsoft-vpn-client using homebrew by tapping homebrew/boneyard and then trying to install:
brew tap homebrew/boneyardthen
brew install shrewsoft-vpn-clientnwwatson
Thank you very much, Mr. Watson.
- Creating an alias for the shresoft-vpn-client under Application:
brew linkapps shrewsoft-vpn-clientNote: if this step fails, you may need to remove folders with previous versions of Shrew Soft binaries installed in Applications folder by issuing this command:
sudo rm -rf /Applications/Shrew* - Setting up automatic start via launchd.
Note: because we already had an older version of Shrew Soft daemon at that location, we had to manually remove the old one first:
sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/*shrew*.plistThen proceed with the new client set up:
sudo cp -fv /usr/local/opt/shrewsoft-vpn-client/*.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons sudo chown root /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.shrewsoft-vpn-client.plist - Start the newly installed Shrew Soft VPN daemon for the first time:
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.shrewsoft-vpn-client.plistOR
sudo /usr/local/sbin/iked - After that you may start using the VPN client! Most probably you would have to re-create your connection configuration, but that is trivial, right?
Mit freundliche grußen,
El Capitan
References
Comments
(90)On Step 2
Your ruby command is failing because of the brackets incorrectly formatted. Thy the command below:
ruby -e “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)” /dev/null
Thank you for your comment. We tried a few variants before giving up, may be too early. Note that in original recipe in German the command was presented as this:
ruby -e „$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)“ /dev/nullThat leading under-quote was even more dubious for successful execution.
Sorry the quotation marks not brackets.
Wordpress seems to format them which gives errors when running.
Sorry, I don’t understand you … Can you write the correct sentence again?
Great solution! Thank you very much.
Almost I’ve created a script to connect. I think is very useful:
#!/bin/bash
sudo killall racoon
DIR=”/Applications/Shrew*Connect.app/Contents/MacOS”
$DIR/Shrew* -r -u -p -a
and it works properly
Interesting. Thank you for the comment.
Thank you! Got it working again! I just had to retype the qoutes(“”) then the command worked.
Great, thanks for confirming. I am glad it worked for you!
any chance a new shrewsoft version will released containing the al capitan fix?
Sorry, that we would not know. It seems that Shrew Soft was infrequent to release new version of their VPN client. Please note that the solution described here was simply recompiling their source in a certain way with newer versions of 3rd party libraries to work with El Capitan; not a Shrew Soft issue per se.
Thank you – Your instructions were excellent on fresh install. To others, make sure you read the Terminal messages before just pressing any keys!
hello,
when I write the command: “brew linkapps shrewsoft-vpn-client”
I get this error message:
“Linking /usr/local/opt/shrewsoft-vpn-client/Shrew Soft VPN Access Manager.app to /Applications.
Error: /Applications/Shrew Soft VPN Access Manager.app already exists, skipping.
Linking /usr/local/opt/shrewsoft-vpn-client/Shrew Soft VPN Client Connect.app to /Applications.
Error: /Applications/Shrew Soft VPN Client Connect.app already exists, skipping.”
is this why shrew soft doesn’t launch at the end of all the procedure?
Hello Rudi, apparently you need to remove the link for the Shewsoft executable that you already had in /Applications. Try to remove that manually via rm command, if nothing else helps.
Hi thanks for the answer,
would you be so kind to write to me a command I can copy and paste?
I’m sorry but I’m not really able to write that on my own.
If that’s not possible, maybe indicate me a way for me to do so.
Thanks again
Please try to issue following commands prior to installation:
rm -rf /Applications/Shrew*
rm -rf /usr/local/opt/shrew*
Note that rm command is powerful and does delete files permanently, it may not be undone. You should be carefully typing or copying it, without any additional spaces or extra symbols in between.
Thanks a lot, now I’ve successfully installed shrew softy.
But now I do get this message when I try to install the new LaunchDaemons:
When I Type: sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/*shrew*.plist
I get: No such file or directory
Same thing when I type sudo cp -fv /usr/local/opt/shrewsoft-vpn-client/*.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo chown root /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.shrewsoft-vpn-client.plist
Any Idea Why?
Yes, you should just skip that step. Because you already removed with your other “rm” command all that needed to be removed.
ok thanks,
But when I try to launch a VPN connection now I get this message from Shrew soft:
failed to attach to key daemon
I’ve checked and there are no shrew soft daemons in the folder where they should be
Don’t know what to do
Sorry to bother again
Rudi, it is hard to understand what status of your installation is. I am sorry. You need to have a bit of technical background to judge the outcome of each command.
Rudi, learn on your own. Andrei has been too patient already!
Jordan, there is no reason to be rude. I do not mind helping, I just need information to be able to help.
Really really sorry.
I’ve now find the problem and resolved the issue. I must have accidentally deleted to many times the daemon files
Thanks again for the post and for Your help
No problem. I am glad it finally worked for you! Good stuff.
Thanks a lot ofr the great instructions! I am running in to an issue connecting, though. All the Terminal commands went smoothly and the client installed as it should. I am using a configuration file that I’ve received from my network admin. When trying to connect, I get the response “attached to key daemon …” and that’s it. Nothing happens after that. I don’t have much experience with VPN’s, so I could use some help as to where to start looking for solutions. Can this have something to do with my install or is it more likely on the server side?
Hi Martin, I am sorry. But this looks like a puzzle for your system admin to resolve. That should include digging through VPN server logs. I wish I could help. Cheers. A.
No worries – thanks a lot for helping me get this far! :)
I had this problem and realized the ike service wasn’t running. Run this in terminal:
sudo /usr/sbin/iked
It will start the service. You will have to run this every time you reboot since it looks like it doesn’t start the service automatically. Or you can setup scripts to start it for you.
You are geniuses!! It work
Hi I’m trying to install the client but I receive the following error:
$ brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
==> Downloading https://www.shrew.net/download/ike/ike-2.2.1-release.tbz2
######################################################################## 100.0%
curl: (33) HTTP server doesn’t seem to support byte ranges. Cannot resume.
==> Trying a full download
# 2.4%
curl: (56) SSLRead() return error -9806
Error: Failed to download resource “shrewsoft-vpn-client”
Download failed: https://www.shrew.net/download/ike/ike-2.2.1-release.tbz2
Anyone has encountered this problem?
If I manually download the package ike-2.2.1-release.tbz2, opening it with download manager says: Error 1 – Operation not permitted
Nevermind: after some days I re-tried the installation and all went fine!
Thanks for confirming that the recipe finally worked for you! We are glad to hear that.
hello, thanks for this solution.
It seems that there is an error as follows :
Last 15 lines from /Users/gug/Library/Logs/Homebrew/shrewsoft-vpn-client/01.cmake:
— The C compiler identification is AppleClang 6.1.0.6020053
— The CXX compiler identification is AppleClang 6.1.0.6020053
CMake Error at /usr/local/Cellar/cmake/3.4.3/share/cmake/Modules/Platform/Darwin.cmake:84 (message):
CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET (10.11) is greater than CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT SDK:
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.10.sdk
Please set CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET to 10.10 or lower.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/usr/local/Cellar/cmake/3.4.3/share/cmake/Modules/CMakeSystemSpecificInformation.cmake:36 (include)
CMakeLists.txt:10 (project)
— Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also “/tmp/shrewsoft-vpn-client20160223-11597-mpvsrf/ike/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log”.
Any idea ?
Thanks again
Hi! Thanks for your comment. We did not observe this. It looked to us like your SDK version might be outdated, as it pointed out to XCode being for 10.10 version of Mac OS. Are you trying to run this on El Capitan (10.11) or some earlier OS? Please check in that direction. Let us know if this helped.
Hi!
I was able to connect to shrewsoft vpn through my prev OS MAvericks now i have upgraded to Capitan, and i am unable to connect.I have followed all the steps mentioned above. I am able to launch successfully access manager, but after i enter my 1st level credentials it just says attached to key daemon but not proceeding further.Its stuck there.
This article was a tremendous help. I would like to update it with what worked for me if you don’t mind.
1. Install Xcode from the App Store.
2. Open Xcode and agree to the license agreement. Close Xcode once it finishes loading.
3. Open up Terminal. Run the following commands:
ruby -e “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)” /dev/null
brew install Caskroom/cask/tuntap
brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
sudo brew services start shrewsoft-vpn-client
brew linkapps shrewsoft-vpn-client
Apologies, forgot to mention. This worked with the most current version, El Capitan.
Thank you, Cody. We will just leave your comment here if you do not mind. That should provide help for people who are looking for alternative recipes. Thank you again.
Hello,
Error: No available formula with the name “shrewsoft-vpn-client”
==> Searching for similarly named formulae…
Error: No similarly named formulae found.
why?
Thank you!
Hi! Could you please share with us a command that results in this error? Thank you.
$ brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
Error: No available formula with the name “shrewsoft-vpn-client”
==> Searching for similarly named formulae…
Error: No similarly named formulae found.
==> Searching taps…
Error: No formulae found in taps.
Folks, let us check if we have that package “shrewsoft-vpn-client” handy. If the file would be located, we will probably share it for download and install through this website. As it looks like it was removed from brew repository for unknown reasons. Thank you for all the comments and questions.
Here it is. If you are missing “shrewsoft-vpn-client” package from brew’s repository, you may download and install a copy of the package from our website: http://nubisnovem.com/files/shrewsoft-vpn-client-2.2.1.tbz2
We will add a note to the recipe post now for you convenient. Thank you for your feedback.
When i try to run: brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
i always get this error massage: CMake Error at /usr/local/Cellar/cmake/3.7.1/share/cmake/Modules/FindQt4.cmake:1318 (message):
Found unsuitable Qt version “5.7.1” from /usr/local/bin/qmake, this code
requires Qt 4.x
I am using, Mac OS X 10.11.6
Does anybody know how to fix it?
Please look through other comments. You may need to install a different version of Qt library. There are a few workarounds discussed here.
Has anyone tried to run more than one tunnel at a time with the Shrew Soft Client? Maybe I have an environmental thing going on, but I don’t get another session spawned when I go to open a second tunnel from the Connection Manager. This does not happen with the Windows client. Ideas welcome.
GUANG% brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
Error: No available formula with the name “shrewsoft-vpn-client”
==> Searching for similarly named formulae…
Error: No similarly named formulae found.
==> Searching taps…
Error: No formulae found in taps.
Please try this link to get a copy of package:
http://nubisnovem.com/files/shrewsoft-vpn-client-2.2.1.tbz2
Hello,
when I get the copy what shall I do?
Thanks for helping
You can get the shrewsoft-vpn-client using homebrew by tapping homebrew/boneyard and then trying to install
brew tap homebrew/boneyard
then
brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
Thanks a bunch, Mr. Watson. We thought the easiest way should have existed to address this unfortunate package demotion.
HI,
I’m trying to install shrewsoft on the latest MacOS Sierra but I’m running into a problem. I’ve followed all steps above to get ruby, hombrew, tun tap etc all installed but when going to install shew it comes up with following error:
MacBook:~ $ brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
==> Auto-updated Homebrew!
Updated 1 tap (homebrew/core).
==> Updated Formulae
libyaml
==> Installing shrewsoft-vpn-client from homebrew/boneyard
qt: This formula either does not compile or function as expected on macOS
versions newer than El Capitan due to an upstream incompatibility.
Error: An unsatisfied requirement failed this build.
Any ideas what this could be?
Thanks in advance
Hello Maneh,
Thank you for your question. That must be because of qt library not available for newer MacOS operating system version. You may look for that separately, or, if we were you, we would try the following sequence in your situation:
brew tap homebrew/boneyard
then
brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
Then repeat the normal install in a new terminal session (when brew would default to its regular repository):
brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
Please do let us know what would be outcome of your situation. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Andrei
” This formula either does not compile or function as expected on macOS
versions newer than El Capitan due to an upstream incompatibility.
Error: An unsatisfied requirement failed this build.”
Can you help?
There is no solution for Sierra MacOS release available yet. We are truly sorry about that.
You don’t have to :) Is there another vpn-client for mac os which allows me to import my shrew soft settings (it’s a .vpn format file)?
thanks for your help!
Still the same I’m afraid :( , I’ve tried reinstalling everything, installing different versions of Qt and it’s still throwing up the same message. I opened a new terminal session with homebrew as default and still same error :(
Same QT4 problem here.
At the link below some bad news.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/39690404/brew-install-qt-does-not-work-on-macos-sierra
I was just able to use this workaround on a fresh install of macOS Sierra.
It appears that despite the message, qt.rb runs fine under Sierra however you just need to comment out the line that calls El Capitan out as the maximum requirement.
/usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula/qt.rb
comment out the following line ( line 36 in my case )
depends_on MaximumMacOSRequirement => :el_capitan
I would be interested to hear if others have the same experience.
Thanks
Thanks a bunch, Kelly. That seems to be obvious, yet very interesting solution. We have not thought of that! We will conduct a test on our freshly installed MacOS Sierra and if that works fine in our setup, we will publish a recipe duly crediting you as the source of the solution! So, other users may enjoy it as well. Thank you again!
Thats not all with sierra and qt4 — look here: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/5216.
After line 70 in /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula/qt.rb you need to add the following too:
args <= :sierra || MacOS::Xcode.version >= “8.0”
otherwise, the compiler breaks with qt4 on sierra (on my second mac with el capitan it was no problem).
Hi. Thanks all for keeping this thread alive.
I have a fresh install of Sierra and it failed to compile just as described above. So I got this far: I commented out the line Kelly Martin suggested.
Timothys-MBP:/ tim$ sudo vim /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula/qt.rb
Then I ran it again from this point:
Timothys-MBP:/ tim$ brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
==> Installing shrewsoft-vpn-client from homebrew/boneyard
==> Installing dependencies for homebrew/boneyard/shrewsoft-vpn-client: cmake, openssl, qt
==> Installing homebrew/boneyard/shrewsoft-vpn-client dependency: cmake
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/cmake-3.7.0.sierra.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring cmake-3.7.0.sierra.bottle.tar.gz
==> Caveats
Emacs Lisp files have been installed to:
/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/cmake
==> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/cmake/3.7.0: 2,140 files, 29M
==> Installing homebrew/boneyard/shrewsoft-vpn-client dependency: openssl
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/openssl-1.0.2j.sierra.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring openssl-1.0.2j.sierra.bottle.tar.gz
==> Using the sandbox
==> Caveats
A CA file has been bootstrapped using certificates from the SystemRoots
keychain. To add additional certificates (e.g. the certificates added in
the System keychain), place .pem files in
/usr/local/etc/openssl/certs
and run
/usr/local/opt/openssl/bin/c_rehash
This formula is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /usr/local.
Apple has deprecated use of OpenSSL in favor of its own TLS and crypto libraries
Generally there are no consequences of this for you. If you build your
own software and it requires this formula, you’ll need to add to your
build variables:
LDFLAGS: -L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib
CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include
==> Summary
/usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.2j: 1,695 files, 12M
==> Installing homebrew/boneyard/shrewsoft-vpn-client dependency: qt
==> Downloading https://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/4.8/4.8.7/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.7.tar.gz
==> Downloading from http://qt.mirrors.tds.net/qt/official_releases/qt/4.8/4.8.7/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.7.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Downloading https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/formula-patches/480b7142c4e2ae07de6028f672695eb927a34875/qt/el-capitan.patch
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Patching
==> Applying el-capitan.patch
patching file src/gui/painting/qpaintengine_mac.cpp
==> ./configure -prefix /usr/local/Cellar/qt/4.8.7_2 -release -opensource -confirm-license -fast -system-zlib -qt-libtiff -qt-libpng -qt-libjpeg -nomake demos
==> make
Here it got stuck. ^T revealed it was continuing for some time going back and forth between moc clang ruby clang++. it’s been running for over 5 minutes now and I don’t think there’s an end to it.
After about 30 minutes, it stopped with an error and printed out the last 15 lines of the make file and then this:
make: *** [sub-plugins-make_default-ordered] Error 2
READ THIS: https://git.io/brew-troubleshooting
These open issues may also help:
qt: migrate to boneyard https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/7019
Transition formulae to Qt 5 https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/1705
you need to patch the /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula/qt.rb like shown in https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/5216 , comment from ilovezfs commented on 25 Sep , klick on link under comment “qt: fix building on Sierra and Xcode 8 by disabling phonon”, add the shown line 74 on right position in these diff-file.
I had same error and this patch clear the compiling problem:
make: *** [sub-plugins-make_default-ordered] Error 2
The patch clear the problem, compiling after patch is possible.
If you want to see what “brew” is doing, call it with parameters “brew install -v -d shrewsoft-vpn-client” (debug and verbose on). It shows the compiler output.
Thank you so much for this info – I installed it yesterday on Sierra 10.12.1 just fine (but my brew environment has been set up for some years so it was by no means a clean install).
I just thought I’d share this with you, obviously only do this if you are happy to put your user name and password into a script…
Automated Start / Stop from command line:
#!/bin/bash
PROFILE=MyProfile
USER=me
PASS=mypass
STARTCMD=”/Applications/Shrew*Connect.app/Contents/MacOS/Shrew*”
# I never could work this out and I was in a hurry!
#STOPGREP=”Shrew\\ Soft\\ VPN\\ CLient”
case “$1” in
start)
$STARTCMD -r $PROFILE -u $USER -p $PASS -a > /dev/null 2>&1 &
osascript <<-EAS
delay 5
tell application "System Events"
set frontmost of process "Shrew Soft VPN Client Connect" to true
keystroke return
tell process "Shrew Soft VPN Client Connect" to set visible to false
end tell
EAS
;;
stop)
kill $(pgrep -f Shrew\ Soft\ VPN\ Client)
;;
status)
vpn_pid=$(pgrep -f Shrew\ Soft\ VPN\ Client)
if [[ -z $vpn_pid ]]; then
echo "VPN not running"
else
echo "VPN running: $vpn_pid"
fi
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status"
esac
The blog completely removed all formatting from that. Try this…
[gist]d098f7f7364b6590191e5899e2f9a5c5[/gist]
Hi Martin, how do I use this script? I’m sorry to ask, I’m not much into this stuff, I just wanna use the client on sierra as I did all the time before :( I’d really appreciate your help. Thanx!
My ShrewSoft VPN had been working just fine and then just yesterday it stopped working, every time I try to connect – I am receiving the following message:
bringing up tunnel …
negotiation timout occurred
tunnel disabled
detached from key daemon
It sits on the “brining up tunnel …” line for about 15-20 secs and then times out.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling several time to no avail.
I am on OS 10.12.2, on a MacBook Air.
Thanks in advance,
Jamie
Please try usual troubleshooting steps with VPN: reboot your computer, if that does not help power-cycle your router or cable-modem (or other ISP device). Sometimes, VPN session information get stale in router and it is impossible to reestablish the VPN connect without these procedures.
Thanks for the reply, I have tried rebooting laptop several times, but I have not tried power-cycling the router. I will give that a try and let you know.
Thanks again!
I tried the power-cycling of the router, but it did not work. I am still encountering the same error.
Reviewing my system log, the following 2 lines keep repeating, over and over…
Dec 19 20:49:32 Jamies-MacBook-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.shrewsoft-vpn-client[35070]): Service exited with abnormal code: 255
Dec 19 20:49:32 Jamies-MacBook-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.shrewsoft-vpn-client): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Sorry to hear that. It may be that on your laptop XCode or other development library revision is now not compatible with the binary for the VPN daemon. Please read above comments and try a solution that may work (recompiling the original source code with some code changes may be required).
This does not seem to work anymore… I get:
— Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also “/tmp/shrewsoft-vpn-client-20170108-8646-103cuvb/ike/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log”.
See also “/tmp/shrewsoft-vpn-client-20170108-8646-103cuvb/ike/CMakeFiles/CMakeError.log”.
Error: shrewsoft-vpn-client was moved to homebrew-boneyard because it has unfixable issues.
Please do not file any issues about this. Sorry!
Please look through other comments. They have moved the VPN package into homebrew-boneyard. There are a few workarounds discussed here.
I see changes with brew since jan 2017. The depencies against qt now will be install qt5. Shrew needs qt4, compiling against qt5 is not possible. But you can install qt4 with brew like here:
brew tap cartr/qt4
brew tap-pin cartr/qt4
brew install qt
That alone don’t work for me, shrew install again qt5 himself, which don’t compile shrew. My solution was at last in the .rb-file for shrew (search for this) comment out the depencies against qt (but you need to have an installed qt4 correctly like I show at begin of my comment !). After that, shrew compile correct and linked against qt4 correctly (I removed qt5 completly before compiling).
Now shrew works perfectly with sierra (with my macbook pro, latest sierra and latest xcode, clean installed in jan 2017 on my macbook pro).
Thanks a bunch for your comment here! We were glad to see that there is a working scenario for Sierra MacOS release. That should be useful for our readers who are struggling to make the VPN software to work.
So the solution is:
brew tap cartr/qt4
brew tap-pin cartr/qt4
brew install qt
brew uninstall qt5
sudo vim /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-boneyard/shrewsoft-vpn-client.rb
And comment out this line: # depends_on “qt” if build.with? “gui”
:wq
brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
brew linkapps shrewsoft-vpn-client
:)
yes tothis, that’s my way too for build shrew and I confirm this.
Remark: In addition, sometimes you will need switch off the build-in vpn daemon in macos named racoon, maybe the iked (the shrew vpn daemon) will not be working if racoon is running. There’s a graphical gui tool named lingonx for control the launchd (which starts system-wide daemons) or do it with command line (“launchctl”). I saw this effect if you ever use the macos build-in vpn-support. Check this out, on one of my macs was this problem real. after stopping racoon shrew’s iked works again correctly.
Hi Heiko…
I am on a MacBook Air running OS Sierra – I followed all of the steps above in regards qt4 and updating the .rb file as well. I have executed “sudo killall racoon” but I still cannot get Shrewsoft to connect successfully. The message I receive in ShrewSoft is “negotiation timout occurred
tunnel disabled
detached from key daemon”
Additionally, if I look at the Console system.log, I see the following message repeated indefinitely:
Jan 31 18:25:49 Jamies-MacBook-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.shrewsoft-vpn-client[48116]): Service exited with abnormal code: 255
Jan 31 18:25:49 Jamies-MacBook-Air com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (homebrew.mxcl.shrewsoft-vpn-client): Service only ran for 0 seconds. Pushing respawn out by 10 seconds.
Any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
jmkurt
I got the same timeout occured :(
Works like a charm!
The only thing I have to to before is
sudo /usr/local/sbin/iked
This comment thread is the best answer I’ve found to this problem in about an hour. This needs to be duplicated somewhere.
Thank you! :)
Sorry to be a pain, but really am a novice at this. I am the only one who has a mac at work and they are telling me I have to go to a PC as we need to use Shrew for VPN access for some new software.
I tried some of the above steps but I can not get it to work.
Can someone post exact steps to start again and post the exact steps. I am using Sierra MacOS release.
It would be useful for me too
Still doesn’t work with boneyard:
$ brew install shrewsoft-vpn-client
Error: No available formula with the name “shrewsoft-vpn-client”
==> Searching for a previously deleted formula…
Warning: homebrew/core is shallow clone. To get complete history run:
git -C “$(brew –repo homebrew/core)” fetch –unshallow
Error: No previously deleted formula found.
==> Searching for similarly named formulae…
==> Searching local taps…
Error: No similarly named formulae found.
==> Searching taps…
==> Searching taps on GitHub…
Error: No formulae found in taps.
Now we have more than one limitations with the shrewsoft-vpn client. Here is a possible way run work with shrew in 10.13 too. First I need to say, I had tested a lot in the last time – but compile the GUI with the old QT4 and Xcode 9 seems to be no more working in any way. BUT, to use the shrew with the command line I have found a way to work in 10.13 too. Problem 1: tap homebrew/boneyard is deprecated, thats fact. I found an old copy of shrewsoft-vpn-client.rb here: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-boneyard/blob/f0f4e1219768afd52d2c6e0d809d7f98ea3ee961/shrewsoft-vpn-client.rb. You need to grab/download these file. So you have the shrewsoft-vpn-client.rb which we need. Problem 2: Shrew-Soft WITH GUI we can’t compile, but WITHOUT GUI (and without the old qt4-stuff) compiling is possible. After Step 1 you need to do: “brew install ./shrewsoft-vpn-client.rb –without-gui” , where ./shrewsoft-vpn-client.rb is the location where you have downloaded or generated the shrewsoft-vpn-client.rb from Step 1. The compiling should be sucessfully running, after this you should in addition do this: “sudo brew services start shrewsoft-vpn-client” . This starts the iked with the launchd, alternatively you can run this with “sudo /usr/local/sbin/iked”. You can start now the shrew in a terminal session with the following: ‘ikec -r “VPNFILE.vpn” -a’ , where the file VPNFILE.vpn is located under ˜/.ike/sites/VPNFILE.vpn in your home-folder. It’s a text file, but without GUI you cannot really edit the settings of these file. That’s at the moment the limitation. A more comfortable option can be this: https://github.com/mejmo/mac-shrew . It’s a small gui for manage the connection more comfortable. Please read there the ISSUES-section, there are important notices, if it not will be running. That’s the situation at the moment.
In addition of my last comment here is an notice: Better you edit the shrewsoft-vpn-client.rb and comment out the line ‘depends_on “qt” if build.with? “gui”‘ with the ‘#’ at begin of line. This bypassing the qt-check. With the command line tool ikec I have sucessfully a working shrew-vpn-client with 10.12.6 on my iMac and 10.13 with my MBP. The configuration files I modify with my windows-version of shrew and transfer after edit to the Macs ˜/.ike/sites/[Name_of_VPN_file].vpn . Not so comfortable, but a possible way at the moment. You can edit the .vpn-Files, these are simply text-files with a specific syntax. The main problem ist generate the password hashes, because it’s not plain text password – it’s hashed. I think really about to program a new gui for shrew-vpn-client – but at moment I haven’t enough time for those. Maybe later – maybe never…
For me and my work the shrew-soft is an essential and basic tool for me because my work, data exchange between win and mac for the vpn-files (I have over 200 access-files for shrew to work remotely with my customers and I won’t definitively use alternative clients) has high priority. I know other clients like NCP and so on, but after testing the results were not so positive for me and my requirements. Thats fact for me – so there is for me no option at this time.
YEAH SUCCESS ! From this point now I have again a full-working ShrewSoft-VPN-client with 10.12 and 10.13 too. Please be patient, I will be prepare a complete documentation for this at my company website. Here as comment are not enough opportunities to publish the things you need to do. The point is – you need to compile direct from the sources. But with help of homebrew, we need this for QT4, openssl, cmake. But shrew itself – we need to build from scratch with modified things in the source package. With homebrew I had only success with the command line tools iked and ikec, NOT with the GUI-Tools. It seems to be limitations with homebrew (brew link and sudo-things work there no more) and operating system (writing in some of the system folders are limited now). Fact is, the shrew works with compiling from scratch with 10.12 AND 10.13 too. I will here communicate, if I have my website ready for documentation.
Look at my webite http://kb.amft-it.de for the build/compiling process of ShrewSoft VPN Client from the original sources. Fact is, it works, other user confirm this in the meantime.