[Discussion] AWS VPN Client for Linux via Distrobox

[fracasula]

Hello, I'm trying to get the AWS VPN Client for Linux to work via Distrobox (here the docs).

Given that the most recent OS that they support is Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and considering that the client fails if you don't have systemd, I'm creating the distrobox like this:

distrobox create --init --name ubuntu-aws --image ubuntu:24.04

Then I follow the rest of the instructions and I'm perfectly able to start the application by doing /opt/awsvpnclient/AWS\ VPN\ Client

Then I click on connect, and it opens Firefox on my host.
There I login via Okta (i.e. okta.com), and then I end up with this:

I installed another Firefox inside the Distrobox as well with the idea to have only the Firefox inside the container affected by the VPN, while keeping the host running without any VPN.

However I'm having troubles setting up the whole thing, and I wouldn't know how to tell the client inside the distrobox not to use the Firefox on the host but the one inside the container itself (they both point to /usr/bin/firefox).

On the host I'm running OpenSuse Tumbleweed.

Any thoughts?

[dottorblaster]

with the idea to have only the Firefox inside the container affected by the VPN, while keeping the host running without any VPN

I'm sorry but distrobox doesn't work like that and we don't sponsor such a usage (not to mention the fact that the cases of people that managed to run VPN software inside distrobox are very rare if nonexistent). The best thing you could attempt is using --unshare-netns or something along those lines.

Another thing that I can tell you is that most probably you want to have a rootful distrobox with --root.

[fracasula]

Alright, thanks, I thought that might be the case. I'll try to see if I can get it to work before giving up and turning to virtual machines or something else 😓

[dottorblaster]

If you manage to do that you're most welcome to open a PR with some documentation about it 😅 there are historically challenging contexts for distrobox, this is one of those.

[dottorblaster]

@fracasula I'll concert this to a discussion to keep it open, maybe someone can help.