The Cisco VPN application interacts badly with many personal software firewalls, including the
Windows XP built-in firewall. So, you have to turn off your firewall every time you want to access your Cisco VPN and turn it back on when you are done. This is so annoying that after a bit you just give up and leave the firewall off. After some searching I found some firewalls that work with my VPN. The software firewalls I have found that work with the Cisco VPN are:
ZoneAlarmPro
ZoneAlarm (Free)
ZoneLabs Integrity 1.0 and higher
BlackIce Agent and BlackIce Defender
Sygate Personal Firewall (Free)
Sygate Personal Firewall Pro
I have been using the free Sygate Personal Firewall and have had no problems with it. I have been able to connect to the VPN and SSH to my development server with no problems.
