linux – Geoff Boeing

AnyConnect VPN on Linux

I run Linux on my school computer, which I brought home to get work done during the stay-at-home order. But when I tried to set up a VPN connection, I was surprised to discover that USC IT didn’t seem to provide a Linux client for Cisco AnyConnect. When I contacted them to ask how to connect, I was informed that “at this time IT doesn’t support Linux.” Shrug emoji.

Fortunately I do support Linux, so if anyone else wants to connect to the USC AnyConnect VPN, here’s how. You could roll your own solution using OpenConnect and a vpnc-script, but that’s complicated. Instead, you can download a current Linux client for Cisco AnyConnect here (you’re welcome). Install it and run it.

You want to connect to sslvpn.usc.edu (the normal vpn.usc.edu server does not work here). To log in, enter your normal USC username and password. For “second password” open your Duo Security app, generate a two-factor code, and enter it here. And ta-da, you’re in.

Scientific Python for Raspberry Pi

A guide to setting up the Python scientific stack, well-suited for geospatial analysis, on a Raspberry Pi 3. The whole process takes just a few minutes.

The Raspberry Pi 3 was announced two weeks ago and presents a substantial step up in computational power over its predecessors. It can serve as a functional Wi-Fi connected Linux desktop computer, albeit underpowered. However it’s perfectly capable of running the Python scientific computing stack including Jupyter, pandas, matplotlib, scipy, scikit-learn, and OSMnx.

Despite (or because of?) its low power, it’s ideal for low-overhead and repetitive tasks that researchers and engineers often face, including geocoding, web scraping, scheduled API calls, or recurring statistical or spatial analyses (with small-ish data sets). It’s also a great way to set up a simple server or experiment with Linux. This guide is aimed at newcomers to the world of Raspberry Pi and Linux, but who have an interest in setting up a Python environment on these $35 credit card sized computers. We’ll run through everything you need to do to get started (if your Pi is already up and running, skip steps 1 and 2).