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It’s really  frustrated that I own a nice iPhone that can do VPN and Microsoft Exchange email but the IT people where I work won’t bother to support it.  They just say it is not secure enough.  What the heck.  I mean I already use Cisco VPN client to log in my workplace’s network using my notebook.  So what is the different between VPN in using the notebook versus the iPhone.  It’s the same Cisco VPN client that the iPhone also supports.

Anyway, I have it figure out and the key is the PCF profile files and little known trick. For Windows, the PCF files should locate underneath where you install the Cisco VPN Client.  Mine is under C:\Program Files\Cisco Systems\VPN Client\Profiles.  Now there could be more than one PCF files so only use the one that apply to you.   Open it up as a text file and basically copy the values over to the iPhone VPN setup screen.

First,  go to the iPhone VPN:

Settings, General, Network, VPN, Add VPN Configuration.   On top, click on IPSec.  The screen now displays a Cisco logo and these fields: Description, Server, Account, Group Name, Secret.

Now here are the PCF’s fields that you want to copy over to the iPhone setup screen:

Description: enter anything that you want here,  UserName is for Account, Host=Server, GroupName=Group Name, Secret=???.

The Secret field is the reason  I think why most of you end up here in this blog.  Copy all the hex values you see after enc_GroupPwd in the PCF file and go to this Website to decode it.  This is the whole secret that the IT people don’t want me to know.  After you got the decrypted code enter it on the  Secret field.  And there you have it.  You now should be able to VPN in yours work’s network.

My work has the browser interface to Microsoft Exchange email so I can use iPhone Safari to read emails after VPN is connected.  I still can’t use the iPhone’s email reader directly for some reason.  I think the IT just basically reject anything come in from iPhone.  But who care, I can use the browser version and that is all I care.

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