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Can two VPN clients coexist?

I am currently using two different VPN solutions -- Cisco and Nortel. How can I make the two coexist as a client on my laptop? It appears that I can only use one or the other.

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Usually you cannot run two VPN clients on one machine because they compete for the same protocol and prot services, namely, IP proto 50/51 and UDP port 500 if it is an IPSec-based VPN client. I've never tried to install those particular clients on the same machine at the same time but I've done so with others and have been able to make them work as long as I don't execute the applications simultaneously. I've seen really desperate testers use Vxworks to install multiple clients on a machine since it supports multiple IP stacks or just install multiple OSes on separate partitions. Question: Why do you need to have them both installed (unless you are testing)?

This was first published in December 2001

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