I’ve recently moved and needed to connect to my (still existing) home network from my desktop. I’ve never had to VPN from my desktop before, so here my notes for getting it working.

Configuration

1. Install necessary lt2p, pptp, and libreswan packages (I’m using yay as my package manager)
   yay -Sy community/networkmanager-l2tp community/networkmanager-pptp aur/networkmanager-libreswan aur/libreswan
2. Configure VPN in GNOME settings (close settings window first if it was already open)
   1. Add VPN / Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP)
   2. Gateway: IP/DNS of VPN
   3. User Authentication: Type: password
   4. IPsec Settings: Type: Pre-shared Key (PSK)
   5. PPP settings: Only check MSCHAPv2, check everything else. MPPE Security: 128-bit (most secure)

Troubleshooting

If something isn’t working the popup is not very descriptive. Network manager logs are stored in journald, so the best way to troubleshoot is to follow the logs: (-f for follow, -u for unit name)

sudo journalctl -f -u NetworkManager

In my case following the networkmanager logs I could see I didn’t have libreswan fully installed, and installing the libreswan package fixed it.