I'm trying to get VPN access up and running. The company has a SonicWall firewall/concentrator and I'm working on a Mac. I'm not sure of the SonicWall's hardware or software level. My MacBook Pro is OS X 10.8, x64, fully patched.

The Mac Networking applet claims the remote server is not responding. The connection attempt subsequently fails:

This is utter bullshit, as a Wireshark trace shows the Protected Mode negotiation, and then the fallback to Quick Mode:

I have two questions (1) does Mac OS X VPN work in real life? (2) Are there any trustworthy (non-Apple) tools to test and diagnose the connection problem (Wireshark is a cannon and I have to interpret the results)?

And a third question (off topic): what is broken in Cupertino such that so much broken software gets past their QA department?

EDIT (12/14/2012): The network guy sent me "VPN Configuration Guide" (Equinox document SonicOS_Standard-6-EN). It seems an IPSec VPN now requires a Firewall Unique Identifier. Just to be sure, I revisited RFC 2409, where Main Mode, Aggressive Mode, and Quick Mode are discussed. I cannot find a reference to Firewall Unique Identifier.

I think I am screwed here: I am trying to connect to a broken (non-standard) firewall, with a broken Mac OS X client. Fortunately, I can purchase VPN Tracker Personal (a {SonicWall|Equinox}-authored client) for $129US from Equinox. So much for standards....