GlobalProtect Installation for MFA VPN

Posted on 2021-05-05 by mike

This is a technical guide to some methods of installing/fixing the GlobalProtect client in the short term whilst ongoing conversations with the relevant vendors is taking place.

  1. Make sure you are using an up to date version of the client; the latest officially deployed version of which can be downloaded from https://staff.vpn.port.ac.uk/ or https://student.vpn.port.ac.uk/. It would be wise to completely remove older clients from the machine.
  2. Make sure that the machine is running a supported operating system.

Windows Installation

This requires a command-line installation with a switch to turn on the “default browser” option :-

msiexec.exe /i GlobalProtect.msi DEFAULTBROWSER=YES

Where “GlobalProtect.msi” is the file you have copied onto the client machine.

Mac Installation

Installation on a Mac is done in the usual way but before the VPN client is run, a terminal command needs to be run :-

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.paloaltonetworks.GlobalProtect.settings.plist '{"Palo Alto Networks" ={GlobalProtect={Settings={default-browser=yes;};};};}'

That’s all on one line.

Switching Browser

At least one report suggests changing the default browser on the client machine to an alternate browser – specifically from Chrome to Firefox.

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