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Connection Menu

Juniper Secure Connect Connection menu provides you the options to establish remote access connection and secure the connection with certificates. Use the Connection menu for connection related options to view the certificates, enter PIN, reset PIN, or change PIN.

What's Next

For more information on Juniper Secure Connect GUI elements, see Juniper Secure Connect GUI Elements.

For more information on Juniper Secure Connect features and how to configure the options, see View Menu and Help Menu.

Connect Menu Option

Following are the steps to establish a connection:

  1. You must first define and select a profile to establish a connection for that profile. Click on the Connection Profile dropdown list and select a profile for which you want to establish a connection.
  2. Click the Connection toggle button to establish connection manually to the destination system. You can also select Connection > Connect from the menu bar to manually establish a VPN connection as shown in Figure 2.
    Warning:

    If the following the warning message is displayed, your application is missing the CA certificate from the VPN gateway (SRX Series Firewall). If you are a remote user, contact your IT organization for appropriate action. If you are a system administrator, place the cacerts in the respective location for the platform.

    Figure 1 is a sample warning message on Windows platform that is displayed when CA certificate is not present.

    Figure 1: Sample Certificate Warning Message on Windows Platform Sample Certificate Warning Message on Windows Platform
  3. To disconnect the existing connection, go to Connection > Disconnect, or use the Connection toggle button.
Figure 2: Connect Menu OptionConnect Menu Option

Connection Info Menu Option

In the menu bar, navigate to Connect > Connection Info to get the following information on your connection as shown in Figure 3:

  • Name of the currently selected profile

  • Statistics information (for example, time online and value of timeout)

  • IP addresses (VPN IP address, DNS server, VPN Endpoint)

  • Security mode

  • Security keys used

  • Quality of Service provides the following information:

    • QoS groups available for the currently selected profile. You can switch on or off the QoS groups.

    • Graphical representation of the bandwidth used.

Figure 3: Connect Info Menu OptionConnect Info Menu Option

Figure 4 shows an example of connection information for a VPN connection.

Figure 4: Connection InformationConnection Information

New Gateway Menu Option

When you first launch the Juniper Secure Connect application, you'll be able to view only the Connection Profile option.

To connect to a new gateway:

  • Navigate to Connection > New Gateway from the Connection menu. See Figure 5.
  • When you select New Gateway option, the Gateway Address field appears. Enter the URL for the new gateway address. Alternatively, you can also press Ctrl+N to enter the gateway address.
  • After entering the gateway address, click on the Connection button to establish the connection to the specified SRX gateway address.
Figure 5: New Gateway Menu Option New Gateway Menu Option

Gateways Menu Option

If you wish to remove a gateway address from the gateways list, follow these steps:

  • Navigate to Connection > Gateways from the Connection menu. See Figure 6.
  • Select Gateways and the list of gateway address appears.
  • Select the gateway address you wish to remove from the list and select delete from the list. Alternatively, you can also delete the gateway address from the list by pressing Ctrl+D.
Figure 6: Delete Gateways Delete Gateways

Certificates Menu Option

Certification Authority (CA) (also referred as the Issuer) creates and issues certificates using a PKI manager (software) and stores as a soft certificate.

User and CA certificates are stored in the following directory locations:

  • User certificates are stored as a PKCS#12 file under C:\ProgramData\Juniper\SecureConnect\certs directory, like C:\ProgramData\Juniper\SecureConnect\certs\user.p12.

  • CA or issuer certificates are stored under C:\ProgramData\Juniper\SecureConnect\cacerts.

Juniper Secure Connect supports *.pem and *.crt formats for CA certificates.

As shown in Figure 7, navigate to Connection > Certificates to view certificates related menu options.

Figure 7: Certificates Menu OptionCertificates Menu Option

Figure 8 shows an example of CA certificates window, after selecting Display CA Certificates option from the Certificates menu.

Figure 8: View CA CertificatesView CA Certificates

Enter PIN Menu Option

You can enter the PIN after starting the Juniper Secure Connect and before establishing a connection. If you want to establish a connection using a certificate at a later time, then you can skip the PIN entry unless the certificate configuration requires it.

To enter your PIN:

  1. Navigate to Connection> Enter PIN from the menu. See Figure 9.
  2. Enter the PIN. PIN must be a minimum of six digits in length.
  3. Click OK.

You need a PIN to establish the connection with certificates successfully. At the first time of establishing a connection manually, you must enter the PIN. For subsequent manual connections, you can skip entering the PIN again. A correct PIN entry is indicated by a green PIN symbol.

Figure 9: Enter PIN Menu OptionEnter PIN Menu Option

Change PIN Menu Option

In Juniper Secure Connect, if you want to enter the PIN only before establishing the connection, your administrator needs to enable PIN request at each connection option for Certificate Based Authentication method. Administrator can enable PIN request at each connection option to prevent an unauthorized user from setting up an unauthorized connection when the PIN has already been entered. When PIN request at each connection option is enabled, whenever you establish a connection, you are prompted to enter the PIN.

If you select Connection > Change PIN, the PIN that has already been requested in connection with other functions is no longer used, that is, when setting up a connection, or in the Enter PIN connection menu. Instead you can always select the Connection > Change PIN and the new PIN will be automatically reset immediately after the change. This ensures that when configuring PIN request at each connection (by your administrator) on an unauthorized Juniper Secure Client, an unauthorized user’s PIN cannot be used at anytime to establish a connection.

Figure 10 shows the connection menu options.

Figure 10: Connection MenuConnection Menu

To change your PIN for a smartcard or token or soft certificate:

  1. Navigate to Connection > Change PIN in the menu bar. See Figure 11.
  2. Enter the correct PIN number has been entered previously.
  3. Enter your new PIN and confirm it by repeating it.
  4. Click on OK. You have now changed your PIN.
Figure 11: Change PIN Menu OptionChange PIN Menu Option

Figure 12 shows an example Change PIN window.

Figure 12: Change To New PINChange To New PIN

Reset PIN Menu Option

To reset your PIN:

  1. You can select Connection > Reset PIN to reset the PIN. See Figure 13.
  2. You must enter the correct PIN to reset the PIN, because, the certificate is used to establish the connection.
  3. If the PIN is reset, you cannot use this certificate to establish a connection, until the correct PIN is entered again.
Figure 13: Reset PIN Menu OptionReset PIN Menu Option

Exit Menu Option

To exit Juniper Secure Connect:

  1. If you’ve already disconnected the VPN connection, navigate to Connection > Exit in the menu bar as shown in Figure 14 or click the close button at the top right corner to exit Juniper Secure Connect.
  2. If a connection is currently active, navigate to Connection > Exit in the menu bar or click the close button at the top right corner to exit Juniper Secure Connect. Note that an existing connection will not be automatically disconnected. You will get a confirmation message whether to close the connection, you must select Yes if you want the potentially chargeable connection to remain established even though the monitor is being exited.

    If you select No, then your desktop does not display any icon and you won’t be notified that the link is active and that charges may be incurred. In such a case, you must restart the Juniper Secure Connect to disconnect the connection properly.

Figure 14: Exit Menu OptionExit Menu Option