Guide to Managing Conflicts Between Pulse Secure and Umbrella Roaming Client

Overview 

If you currently use Pulse Secure as a VPN client and are looking to install the Umbrella roaming client, this article is a must read. Though some users have reported limited success getting the the Cisco Umbrella roaming client to function with Pulse Secure VPN, it has numerous incompatibilities and is not supported at this time. 

If you are experiencing issues with Umbrella Roaming client compatibility, the supported solution is to move to the AnyConnect Umbrella Roaming Security Module.  This is included in your Umbrella DNS subscription as of April 2021. The primary account holder may access this software at software.cisco.com. If you are unsure which account has access or if there is an issue with access, please contact your account manager or the Umbrella support team at umbrella-support@cisco.com to reach out to your account manager on your behalf.

Unsupported Deployments of Pulse Secure

Pulse Secure is known to conflict with the Umbrella roaming client in the following two scenarios:

• Pulse Windows 10 App style connection.
  • Impact: Pulse will not connect
• Pulse Secure
  • Impact: On disconnect, saved local DNS may remain on VPN values or 127.0.0.1 rather than WiFi/Ethernet values due to Pulse modification during VPN connection. This modification is a conflict between the Umbrella modifications and the Pulse modifications on the non-VPN NIC.
    
    • User connectivity will be broken after disconnection until a DHCP lease renew occurs.
  • Solution: 
    
    • Switch to the Umbrella Roaming Security Module within AnyConnect (AnyConnect VPN not required. License for AnyConnect for Umbrella use is included in your DNS package or can be provided to resolve this known conflict.)
• Pulse Secure with FQDN based split tunnel with split-dns
  
  • Impact: AC RSM will not go into encrypted/protected mode when used with pulse FQDN based split tunnel vpn. The vpn split-dns configuration does not work as expected and behaves as tunnel-all dns. Split-dns for pulse vpn will work fine only when AC RSM is disabled.
  • Solution:
    • Switch to IP based split tunnel for vpn config