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Background

Global Protect is Mines’ Remote Access Solution (a.k.a. a Virtual Private Network or VPN). Members of the Mines community who are not physically on campus can use this system to access resources located on campus and hence not available to the Internet at large. Network traffic leaving the remote computer is encrypted and sent to the Global Protect system located on campus where it is decrypted and forwarded on to the destination. The computer at the destination sees the traffic as coming from a computer at Mines rather than the home system. Returning traffic is sent to campus where it is encrypted and sent to the remote computer. More information about how and why you might want to use Global Protect can be found here: https://helpcenter.mines.edu/TDClient/1946/Portal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=133729

Installation

The Palo Alto Networks provides two types of Linux clients: a GUI client and a CLI client. Each client version is available as a Debian Package Manager file, RedHat Package Manager file or standalone manual installation package. All nine files can be downloaded as a tarball from https://download.mines.edu/GlobalProtect/index.html. After extracting the files from the archive you can use the package manager supported by your distribution to install the client.

Important: Depending on your distribution there may be some dependencies that need to be resolved before the package can be installed. Please refer to the documentation for your distribution for detailed instructions.

Configuration

After installation the only configuration parameter you need is address of the portal, which is GlobalProtect.Mines.EDU. Once the client is configured with that address the other settings will be downloaded and you will be challenged to authenticate via a web browser.

Disconnecting

If you need to disconnect your GlobalProtect session click on the globe icon, then select the menu icon in the upper/right corner of the window. The bottom most menu option is disable.