Help me get my Mac connected to my company's VPN.

Have you checked your firewall settings in OS X?

I've used http://www.lobotomo.com/products/IPSecuritas/ to connect to both Checkpoint and Cisco IPSEC vpns with good luck on the last four or five versions of OS X (including Lion).

Are you sure you need a client for this VPN? Since 10.5 or 10.6, Mac OS X has had built-in support for Cisco VPNs. It's way better than the Cisco stuff. If you do need a client, check out http://www.chungwasoft.com/shimo/.

I use the built in VPN client on 10.6 to connect to our Cisco IPSec VPN, and several of my coworkers use it in 10.7. This will probably get you close - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/9010.html. This may be useful also - http://www.bumc.bu.edu/bumc-oit/network/snowleopardvpnsetup/. I used both of these to get going, but I had to contact our network admin for some of the settings, such as the shared secret. Mac-phobic or not, your IT guys should be able to provide you with the configuration options you need.

Blazecock: You're talking about the Get Info window? I see no such check box there (or in the Get Info window for any application). zippy: I have not checked my firewall settings, but suspect that this is not the issue, because I can successfully connect to the VPN using the Cisco client when I boot in 32-bit mode. togdon: I tried IPSecuritas. Some of the setup, especially the server-side instructions, went a bit over my head. I'm afraid to dig too deep on the server side stuff for fear of bringing down the company network. krilli and ralan: I have tried configuring the VPN settings through the Network Settings and get the following error: "The VPN server did not respond. Verify the server address and try reconnecting." I am pretty certain that I have the correct address, group name and shared secret. I'm going to try Shimo too, but at this point I am not very hopeful.

Here's http://www.bol.ucla.edu/alert/20110722.html for the known issue of Mac OS X 10.7 and Cisco VPN. As an alternate (if I'm parsing the linked advice correctly) to booting into 32-bit mode you can: "Configure the Mac OS X built-in VPN client to connect to the UCLA VPN using any one of the following protocols: PPTP or Cisco IPSEC"

Zippy makes a good point - are you using the correct VPN Type? I have to use the L2TP over IPSec, but there are two other options to choose from - PPTP and Cisco IPSec. See if you have better results with whatever VPN type you're not using.

Yeah, I've tried all three VPN types -- IPSec, L2TP over IPSec and that are available in the Network panel under System Preferences. Nada. After asking here, writing to the guys at Mac Geek Gab, posting in the Apple support forums and digging through the Cisco support forums, I am finally giving up. Thanks to everyone who tried to help.