IPSEC.CONF(5)

NAME
ipsec.conf - IPsec configuration and connections

DESCRIPTION

The optional ipsec.conf file specifies most configuration and control information for the Openswan IPsec subsystem. (The major exception is secrets for authentication; see ipsec.secrets(5).) Its contents are not security-sensitive unless manual keying is being done for more than just testing, in which case the encryption/authentication keys in the descriptions for the manually-keyed connections are very sensitive (and those connection descriptions are probably best kept in a separate file, via the include facility described below).

The file is a text file, consisting of one or more sections. White space followed by # followed by anything to the end of the line is a comment and is ignored, as are empty lines which are not within a section.

A line which contains include and a file name, separated by white space, is replaced by the contents of that file, preceded and followed by empty lines. If the file name is not a full pathname, it is considered to be relative to the directory containing the including file. Such inclusions can be nested. Only a single filename may be supplied, and it may not contain white space, but it may include shell wildcards (see sh(1)); for example:

include ipsec.*.conf

The intention of the include facility is mostly to permit keeping information on connections, or sets of connections, separate from the main configuration file. This permits such connection descriptions to be changed, copied to the other security gateways involved, etc., without having to constantly extract them from the configuration file and then insert them back into it. Note also the also and alsoflip parameters (described below) which permit splitting a single logical section (e.g. a connection description) into several actual sections.

The first significant line of the file must specify the version of this specification that it conforms to:

version 2

A section begins with a line of the form:

type name

where type indicates what type of section follows, and name is an arbitrary name which distinguishes the section from others of the same type. (Names must start with a letter and may contain only letters, digits, periods, underscores, and hyphens.) All subsequent non-empty lines which begin with white space are part of the section; comments within a section must begin with white space too. There may be only one section of a given type with a given name.

Lines within the section are generally of the form

parameter=value

(note the mandatory preceding white space). There can be white space on either side of the =. Parameter names follow the same syntax as section names, and are specific to a section type. Unless otherwise explicitly specified, no parameter name may appear more than once in a section.

An empty value stands for the system default value (if any) of the parameter, i.e. it is roughly equivalent to omitting the parameter line entirely. A value may contain white space only if the entire value is enclosed in double quotes ("); a value cannot itself contain a double quote, nor may it be continued across more than one line.

Numeric values are specified to be either an “integer” (a sequence of digits) or a “decimal number” (sequence of digits optionally followed by `.' and another sequence of digits).

There is currently one parameter which is available in any type of section:

also
    the value is a section name; the parameters of that section are appended to this section, as if they had been written as part of it. The specified section must exist, must follow the current one, and must have the same section type. (Nesting is permitted, and there may be more than one also in a single section, although it is forbidden to append the same section more than once.) This allows, for example, keeping the encryption keys for a connection in a separate file from the rest of the description, by using both an also parameter and an include line. (Caution, see BUGS below for some restrictions.)

alsoflip
    can be used in a conn section. It acts like an also that flips the referenced section's entries left-for-right.

Parameter names beginning with x- (or X-, or x_, or X_) are reserved for user extensions and will never be assigned meanings by IPsec. Parameters with such names must still observe the syntax rules (limits on characters used in the name; no white space in a non-quoted value; no newlines or double quotes within the value). All other as-yet-unused parameter names are reserved for future IPsec improvements.

A section with name %default specifies defaults for sections of the same type. For each parameter in it, any section of that type which does not have a parameter of the same name gets a copy of the one from the %default section. There may be multiple %default sections of a given type, but only one default may be supplied for any specific parameter name, and all %default sections of a given type must precede all non-%default sections of that type. %default sections may not contain also or alsoflip parameters.

Currently there are two types of section: a config section specifies general configuration information for IPsec, while a conn section specifies an IPsec connection.

CONN SECTIONS

A conn section contains a connection specification, defining a network connection to be made using IPsec. The name given is arbitrary, and is used to identify the connection to ipsec_auto(8) and ipsec_manual(8). Here's a simple example:

conn snt
	left=10.11.11.1
	leftsubnet=10.0.1.0/24
	leftnexthop=172.16.55.66
	leftsourceip=10.0.1.1
	right=192.168.22.1
	rightsubnet=10.0.2.0/24
	rightnexthop=172.16.88.99
	rightsourceip=10.0.2.1
	keyingtries=%forever

A note on terminology... In automatic keying, there are two kinds of communications going on: transmission of user IP packets, and gateway-to-gateway negotiations for keying, rekeying, and general control. The data path (a set of “IPsec SAs”) used for user packets is herein referred to as the “connection”; the path used for negotiations (built with “ISAKMP SAs”) is referred to as the “keying channel”.

To avoid trivial editing of the configuration file to suit it to each system involved in a connection, connection specifications are written in terms of left and right participants, rather than in terms of local and remote. Which participant is considered left or right is arbitrary; IPsec figures out which one it is being run on based on internal information. This permits using identical connection specifications on both ends. There are cases where there is no symmetry; a good convention is to use left for the local side and right for the remote side (the first letters are a good mnemonic).

Many of the parameters relate to one participant or the other; only the ones for left are listed here, but every parameter whose name begins with left has a right counterpart, whose description is the same but with left and right reversed.

Parameters are optional unless marked “(required)”; a parameter required for manual keying need not be included for a connection which will use only automatic keying, and vice versa.

  CONN PARAMETERS: GENERAL

The following parameters are relevant to both automatic and manual keying. Unless otherwise noted, for a connection to work, in general it is necessary for the two ends to agree exactly on the values of these parameters.

type
    the type of the connection; currently the accepted values are tunnel (the default) signifying a host-to-host, host-to-subnet, or subnet-to-subnet tunnel; transport, signifying host-to-host transport mode; passthrough, signifying that no IPsec processing should be done at all; drop, signifying that packets should be discarded; and reject, signifying that packets should be discarded and a diagnostic ICMP returned.

left
    (required) the IP address of the left participant's public-network interface, in any form accepted by ipsec_ttoaddr(3) or one of several magic values. If it is %defaultroute, and the config setup section's, interfaces specification contains %defaultroute, left will be filled in automatically with the local address of the default-route interface (as determined at IPsec startup time); this also overrides any value supplied for leftnexthop. (Either left or right may be %defaultroute, but not both.) The value %any signifies an address to be filled in (by automatic keying) during negotiation. The value %opportunistic signifies that both left and leftnexthop are to be filled in (by automatic keying) from DNS data for left's client. The values %group and %opportunisticgroup makes this a policy group conn: one that will be instantiated into a regular or opportunistic conn for each CIDR block listed in the policy group file with the same name as the conn.

leftsubnet
    private subnet behind the left participant, expressed as network/netmask (actually, any form acceptable to ipsec_ttosubnet(3)); if omitted, essentially assumed to be left/32, signifying that the left end of the connection goes to the left participant only. If the global option virtual_private has been set, the special keyword vhost:%priv can be used to designate the allowed NAT'ed networks this option can take. If one wants to support both the allowed virtual_private networks as well as non-NAT'ed connection, this subnet option can be set to rightsubnet=vhost:%priv, %no. The special value %priv will be filled in with the network ranges specified in the global option virtual_private=

leftprotoport
    allowed protocols and ports over connection, also called Port Selectors. The argument is in the form protocol, which can be a number or a name that will be looked up in /etc/protocols, such as leftprotoport=icmp, or in the form of protocol/port, such as tcp/smtp. Ports can be defined as a number (eg. 25) or as a name (eg smtp) which will be looked up in /etc/services. A special keyword %any can be used to allow all ports of a certain protocol. The most common use of this option is for L2TP connections to only allow l2tp packets (UDP port 1701), eg: leftprotoport=17/1701. Some clients, notably older Windows XP and some Mac OSX clients, use a random high port as source port. In those cases rightprotoport=17/%any can be used to allow all UDP traffic on the connection. Note that this option is part of the proposal, so it cannot be arbitrarily left out if one end does not care about the traffic selection over this connection - both peers have to agree. The Port Selectors show up in the output of ipsec eroute and ipsec auto --status eg:"l2tp": 193.110.157.131[@aivd.xelernace.com]:7/1701...%any:17/1701 This option only filters outbound traffic. Inbound traffic selection must still be based on firewall rules activated by an updown script. The variablees $PLUTO_MY_PROTOCOL, $PLUTO_PEER_PROTOCOL, $PLUTO_MY_PORT, and $PLUTO_PEER_PORT are available for use in updown scripts. Older workarounds for bugs involved a setting of 17/0 to denote all ports were allowed. This notation should no longer be used.

leftnexthop
    next-hop gateway IP address for the left participant's connection to the public network; defaults to %direct (meaning right). If the value is to be overridden by the left=%defaultroute method (see above), an explicit value must not be given. If that method is not being used, but leftnexthop is %defaultroute, and interfaces=%defaultroute is used in the config setup section, the next-hop gateway address of the default-route interface will be used. The magic value %direct signifies a value to be filled in (by automatic keying) with the peer's address. Relevant only locally, other end need not agree on it.

leftsourceip
    the IP address for this host to use when transmitting a packet to the other side of this link. Relevant only locally, the other end need not agree. This option is used to make the gateway itself use its internal IP, which is part of the leftsubnet, to communicate to the rightsubnet or right. Otherwise, it will use its nearest IP address, which is its public IP address. This option is mostly used when defining subnet-subnet connections, so that the gateways can talk to each other and the subnet at the other end, without the need to build additional host-subnet, subnet-host and host-host tunnels.

leftupdown
    what “updown” script to run to adjust routing and/or firewalling when the status of the connection changes (default ipsec _updown). May include positional parameters separated by white space (although this requires enclosing the whole string in quotes); including shell metacharacters is unwise. See ipsec_pluto(8) for details. Relevant only locally, other end need not agree on it.

leftfirewall
    This option is obsolete and should not used anymore.

  CONN PARAMETERS: AUTOMATIC KEYING

The following parameters are relevant for automatic keying, the normal mode of operation for IPsec. They are ignored in manual keying. Unless otherwise noted, for a connection to work, in general it is necessary for the two ends to agree exactly on the values of these parameters.

keyexchange
    method of key exchange; the default and currently the only accepted value is ike

auto
    what operation, if any, should be done automatically at IPsec startup; currently-accepted values are add (signifying an ipsec auto --add), route (signifying that plus an ipsec auto --route), start (signifying that plus an ipsec auto --up), manual (signifying an ipsec manual --up), and ignore (also the default) (signifying no automatic startup operation). See the config setup discussion below. Relevant only locally, other end need not agree on it (but in general, for an intended-to-be-permanent connection, both ends should use auto=start to ensure that any reboot causes immediate renegotiation). For roadwarrior connections (right=%any), it is not known where the client will show up, so one has to use auto=add

auth
    whether authentication should be done as part of ESP encryption, or separately using the AH protocol; acceptable values are esp (the default) and ah.

authby
    how the two security gateways should authenticate each other; acceptable values are secret for shared secrets, rsasig for RSA digital signatures (the default), secret|rsasig for either, and never if negotiation is never to be attempted or accepted (useful for shunt-only conns). Digital signatures are superior in every way to shared secrets.

ike IKE encryption/authentication algorithm to be used for the connection (phase 1 aka ISAKMP SA). The format is "cipher-hash-modpgroup, cipher-hash-modpgroup, ..." Any left out option will be filled in with all allowed default options. Multiple proposals are seperated by a comma. If an ike= line is specified, no other received proposals will be accepted. Formerly there was a distinction (by using a "!" symbol) between "strict mode" or not. That mode has been obsoleted. If an ike= option is specified, the mode is always strict, meaning no other received proposals will be accepted. Some examples are ike=3des-sha1,aes-sha1, ike=aes, ike=aes128-md5-modp2048, ike=3des-md5-modp1024,esp=aes-sha1-modp1536 or ike=modp1536. The options must be suitable as a value of ipsec_spi(8)'s --ike option. The default is to use IKE, and to allow all combinations of:

    		cipher:			3des or aes
    		hash:			sha1 or md5
    		pfsgroup (DHgroup):	modp1024 or modp1536

    If Openswan was compiled with extra INSECURE and BROKEN options, then the des (1des) and null cipher, as well as modp768 are available. This turns your VPN into a joke. Do not enable these options.

esp ESP encryption/authentication algorithm to be used for the connection (phase2 aka IPsec SA). The format is identical to the ike option listed above. The options must be suitable as a value of ipsec_spi(8)'s --esp option. The default is to use ESP. The default values are the same as for ike= Note also that not all ciphers available to the kernel (eg through CryptoAPI) are necessarilly supported here.

ah  AH authentication algorithm to be used for the connection, e.g here. hmac-md5 The options must be suitable as a value of ipsec_spi(8)'s --ah option. The default is not to use AH. If for some (invalid) reason you still think you need AH, please use esp with the null encryption cipher instead. Note also that not all ciphers available to the kernel (eg through CryptoAPI) are necessarilly supported here.

leftid
    how the left participant should be identified for authentication; defaults to left. Can be an IP address (in any ipsec_ttoaddr(3) syntax) or a fully-qualified domain name preceded by @ (which is used as a literal string and not resolved). The magic value %myid stands for the current setting of myid.

leftrsasigkey
    the left participant's public key for RSA signature authentication, in RFC 2537 format using ipsec_ttodata(3) encoding. The magic value %none means the same as not specifying a value (useful to override a default). The value %dnsondemand (the default) means the key is to be fetched from DNS at the time it is needed. The value %dnsonload means the key is to be fetched from DNS at the time the connection description is read from ipsec.conf; currently this will be treated as %none if right=%any or right=%opportunistic. The value %dns is currently treated as %dnsonload but will change to %dnsondemand in the future. The identity used for the left participant must be a specific host, not %any or another magic value. The value %cert will load the information required from a certificate defined in %leftcert and automatically define leftid for you. Caution: if two connection descriptions specify different public keys for the same leftid, confusion and madness will ensue.

leftrsasigkey2
    if present, a second public key. Either key can authenticate the signature, allowing for key rollover.

leftcert
    If you are using leftrsasigkey=%cert this defines the certificate you would like to use. It should point to a X.509 encoded certificate file. If you do not specify a full pathname, by default it will look in /etc/ipsec.d/certs. If openswan has been compiled with USE_SMARTCARD=true, then this option can also be set to leftcert=%smartcard. If multiple smartcards or USB tokens are present, they can be specified using leftcert=%smartcard<reader nr><PKCS#15 key id>

leftsendcert
    This option configures when Openswan will send X.509 certificates to the remote host. Acceptable values are yes|always (signifying that we should always send a certificate), ifasked (signifying that we should send a certificate if the remote end asks for it), and no|never (signifying that we will never send a X.509 certificate). The default for this option is ifasked which may break compatibility with other vendor's IPSec implementations, such as Cisco and SafeNet. If you find that you are getting errors about no ID/Key found, you likely need to set this to always. This per-conn option replaces the obsolete global nocrsend option.

leftca
    specifies the authorized Certificate Agency (CA) that signed the certificate of the peer. If undefined, it defaults to the CA that signed the certificate specified in leftcert. The special rightca=%same is implied when not specifying a rightca and means that only peers with certificates signed by the same CA as the leftca will be allowed. This option is only useful in complex multi CA certificate situations. When using a single CA, it can be safely omitted for left and right.

leftxauthserver
    Left is an XAUTH server. This can use PAM for authentication or md5 passwords in /etc/ipsec.d/passwd. These are additional credentials to verify the user identity, and should not be confused with the XAUTH group secret, which is just a regular PSK defined in ipsec.secrets. The other side of the connection should be configured as rightxauthclient. XAUTH connections cannot rekey, so rekey=no should be specified in this conn. For further details on how to compile and use XAUTH, see README.XAUTH. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

leftxauthclient
    Left is an XAUTH client. The xauth connection will have to be started interactively and cannot be configured using auto=start. Instead, it has to be started from the commandline using ipsec auto --up connname. You will then be prompted for the username and password. To setup an XAUTH connection non-interactively, which defeats the whole purpose of XAUTH, but is regularly requested by users, it is possible to use a whack command - ipsec whack --name baduser --ipsecgroup-xauth --xauthname badusername --xauthpass password --initiate The other side of the connection should be configured as rightxauthserver. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

leftmodecfgserver
    Left is a Mode Config server. It can push network configuration to the client. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

leftmodecfgclient
    Left is a Mode Config client. It can receive network configuration from the server. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

forceencaps
    In some cases, for example when ESP packets are filtered or when a broken IPsec peer does not properly recognise NAT, it can be useful to force RFC-3948 encapsulation. forceencaps=yes forces the NAT detection code to lie and tell the remote peer that RFC-3948 encapsulation (ESP in UDP port 4500 packets) is required. For this option to have any effect, the setup section option nat_traversal=yes needs to be set. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

dpddelay
    Set the delay (in seconds) between Dead Peer Dectection (RFC 3706) keepalives (R_U_THERE, R_U_THERE_ACK) that are sent for this connection (default 30 seconds). If dpdtimeout is set, but not dpddelay, dpddelay will be set to the default.

dpdtimeout
    Set the length of time (in seconds) we will idle without hearing either an R_U_THERE poll from our peer, or an R_U_THERE_ACK reply. After this period has elapsed with no response and no traffic, we will declare the peer dead, and remove the SA (default 120 seconds). If dpddelay is set, but not dpdtimeout, dpdtimeout will be set to the default.

dpdaction
    When a DPD enabled peer is declared dead, what action should be taken. hold (default) means the eroute will be put into %hold status, while clear means the eroute and SA with both be cleared. dpdaction=clear is really only usefull on the server of a Road Warrior config. The action restart is used on tunnels that need to be permanently up, and have static IP addresses.

modecfgpull
    Pull the Mode Config network information from the server. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

pfs whether Perfect Forward Secrecy of keys is desired on the connection's keying channel (with PFS, penetration of the key-exchange protocol does not compromise keys negotiated earlier); Since there is no reason to ever refuse PFS, Openswan will allow a connection defined with pfs=no to use PFS anyway. Acceptable values are yes (the default) and no.

pfsgroup
    PFS group to be used if pfs=yes, e.g. pfsgroup=modp1536 Because PFS group is not negotiated it is single valued and must be previously coordinated with peer. Possible values are: modp1024, modp1536, modp2048, modp3072 and modp4096. If not specified, it will use same DH group of phase1. Default value is the same value as Phase1's DH group.

aggrmode
    Use Aggressive Mode instead of Main Mode. Aggressive Mode is less secure, and vulnerable to Denial Of Service attacks. It is also vulnerable to brute force attacks with software such as ikecrack. It should not be used, and it should especially not be used with XAUTH and group secrets (PSK). If the remote system administrator insists on staying irresponsible, enable this option. Aggressive Mode is further limited to only one proposal - there is no room for negotation. Therefor it is mandatory for Aggressive Mode connections that both ike= and esp= options are specified with exactly one fully specified proposal. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

keylife
    how long a particular instance of a connection (a set of encryption/authentication keys for user packets) should last, from successful negotiation to expiry; acceptable values are an integer optionally followed by s (a time in seconds) or a decimal number followed by m, h, or d (a time in minutes, hours, or days respectively) (default 8h, maximum 24h). Normally, the connection is renegotiated (via the keying channel) before it expires. The two ends need not exactly agree on keylife, although if they do not, there will be some clutter of superseded connections on the end which thinks the lifetime is longer.

rekey
    whether a connection should be renegotiated when it is about to expire; acceptable values are yes (the default) and no. The two ends need not agree, but while a value of no prevents Pluto from requesting renegotiation, it does not prevent responding to renegotiation requested from the other end, so no will be largely ineffective unless both ends agree on it.

rekeymargin
    how long before connection expiry or keying-channel expiry should attempts to negotiate a replacement begin; acceptable values as for keylife (default 9m). Relevant only locally, other end need not agree on it.

rekeyfuzz
    maximum percentage by which rekeymargin should be randomly increased to randomize rekeying intervals (important for hosts with many connections); acceptable values are an integer, which may exceed 100, followed by a `%' (default set by ipsec_pluto(8), currently 100%). The value of rekeymargin, after this random increase, must not exceed keylife. The value 0% will suppress time randomization. Relevant only locally, other end need not agree on it.

keyingtries
    how many attempts (a whole number or %forever) should be made to negotiate a connection, or a replacement for one, before giving up (default %forever). The value %forever means “never give up” (obsolete: this can be written 0). Relevant only locally, other end need not agree on it.

ikelifetime
    how long the keying channel of a connection (buzzphrase: “ISAKMP SA”) should last before being renegotiated; acceptable values as for keylife (default set by ipsec_pluto(8), currently 1h, maximum 24h). The two-ends-disagree case is similar to that of keylife.

compress
    whether IPComp compression of content is proposed on the connection (link-level compression does not work on encrypted data, so to be effective, compression must be done before encryption); acceptable values are yes and no (the default). The two ends need not agree. A value of yes causes IPsec to propose both compressed and uncompressed, and prefer compressed. A value of no prevents IPsec from proposing compression; a proposal to compress will still be accepted.

disablearrivalcheck
    whether KLIPS's normal tunnel-exit check (that a packet emerging from a tunnel has plausible addresses in its header) should be disabled; acceptable values are yes and no (the default). Tunnel-exit checks improve security and do not break any normal configuration. Relevant only locally, other end need not agree on it.

failureshunt
    what to do with packets when negotiation fails. The default is none: no shunt; passthrough, drop, and reject have the obvious meanings.

  CONN PARAMETERS: MANUAL KEYING

The following parameters are relevant only to manual keying, and are ignored in automatic keying. It is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that you will actually want to use manual keying. It is much harder to configure then automatic keying, and inheritently insecure when used for a prolonged time (eg production) due to the complete lack of key renewal, session keys or perfect forward secrecy.

Unless otherwise noted, for a connection to work, in general it is necessary for the two ends to agree exactly on the values of these parameters. A manually-keyed connection must specify at least one of AH or ESP.

spi (this or spibase required for manual keying) the SPI number to be used for the connection (see ipsec_manual(8)); must be of the form 0xhex, where hex is one or more hexadecimal digits (note, it will generally be necessary to make spi at least 0x100 to be acceptable to KLIPS, and use of SPIs in the range 0x100-0xfff is recommended)

spibase
    (this or spi required for manual keying) the base number for the SPIs to be used for the connection (see ipsec_manual(8)); must be of the form 0xhex0, where hex is one or more hexadecimal digits (note, it will generally be necessary to make spibase at least 0x100 for the resulting SPIs to be acceptable to KLIPS, and use of numbers in the range 0x100-0xff0 is recommended)

espenckey
    ESP encryption key (must be suitable as a value of ipsec_spi(8)'s --enckey option) (may be specified separately for each direction using leftespenckey (leftward SA) and rightespenckey parameters)

espauthkey
    ESP authentication key (must be suitable as a value of ipsec_spi(8)'s --authkey option) (may be specified separately for each direction using leftespauthkey (leftward SA) and rightespauthkey parameters)

espreplay_window
    ESP replay-window setting, an integer from 0 (the ipsec_manual default, which turns off replay protection) to 64; relevant only if ESP authentication is being used

leftespspi
    SPI to be used for the leftward ESP SA, overriding automatic assignment using spi or spibase; typically a hexadecimal number beginning with 0x

ahkey
    (required if ah is present) AH authentication key (must be suitable as a value of ipsec_spi(8)'s --authkey option) (may be specified separately for each direction using leftahkey (leftward SA) and rightahkey parameters)

ahreplay_window
    AH replay-window setting, an integer from 0 (the ipsec_manual default, which turns off replay protection) to 64

leftahspi
    SPI to be used for the leftward AH SA, overriding automatic assignment using spi or spibase; typically a hexadecimal number beginning with 0x

CONFIG SECTIONS

At present, the only config section known to the IPsec software is the one named setup, which contains information used when the software is being started (see ipsec_setup(8)). Here's an example:

config setup
	interfaces="ipsec0=eth1 ipsec1=ppp0"
	klipsdebug=none
	plutodebug=control
	nat_traversal=yes
	virtual_private=%v4:10.0.0.0/8,%v4:192.168.0.0/16,%4:172.16.0.0/12

Parameters are optional unless marked “(required)”.

The currently-accepted parameter names in a config setup section are:

myid
    the identity to be used for %myid. %myid is used in the implicit policy group conns and can be used as an identity in explicit conns. If unspecified, %myid is set to the IP address in %defaultroute (if that is supported by a TXT record in its reverse domain), or otherwise the system's hostname (if that is supported by a TXT record in its forward domain), or otherwise it is undefined. An explicit value generally starts with ``@''.

interfaces
    This option is for KLIPS and KLIPSNG (mast) only and will be ignored when using NETKEY, Windows or BSD stacks. It specifies the virtual and physical interfaces for IPsec to use: a single virtual=physical pair, a (quoted!) list of pairs separated by white space, or %none. One of the pairs may be written as %defaultroute, which means: find the interface d that the default route points to, and then act as if the value was ``ipsec0=d''. %defaultroute is the default; %none must be used to denote no interfaces. If %defaultroute is used (implicitly or explicitly) information about the default route and its interface is noted for use by ipsec_manual(8) and ipsec_auto(8).)

nat_traversal
    whether to accept/offer to support NAT (NAPT, also known as "IP Masqurade") workaround for IPsec. Acceptable values are: yes and no (the default). This parameter may eventually become per-connection.

virtual_private
    contains the networks that are allowed as subnet= for the remote client. In other words, the address ranges that may live behind a NAT router through which a client connects. This value is usually set to all the RFC-1918 address space, excluding the space used in the local subnet behind the NAT (An IP address cannot live at two places at once). IPv4 address ranges are denoted as %v4:a.b.c.d/mm and IPv6 is denoted as %v6:aaaa::bbbb:cccc:dddd/mm. One can exclude subnets by using the !. For example, if the VPN server is giving access to 192.168.1.0/24, this option should be set to: virtual_private=%v4:10.0.0.0/8,%v4:192.168.0.0/16,%4:172.16.0.0/12,%v4:!192.168.1.0/24. This parameter is only needed on the server side and not on the client side that resides behind the NAT router, as the client will just use its IP address for the inner IP setting. This parameter may eventually become per-connection.

nhelpers
    how many pluto helpers are started to help with cryptographic operations. Pluto will start (n-1) of them, where n is the number of CPU's you have (including hypherthreaded CPU's). A value of 0 forces pluto to do all operations in the main process. A value of -1 tells pluto to perform the above calculation. Any other value forces the number to that amount.

myid
    the identity to be used for %myid. %myid is used in the implicit policy group conns and can be used as an identity in explicit conns. If unspecified, %myid is set to the IP address in %defaultroute (if that is supported by a TXT record in its reverse domain), or otherwise the system's hostname (if that is supported by a TXT record in its forward domain), or otherwise it is undefined. An explicit value generally starts with ``@''.

crlcheckinterval
    interval, specified in seconds, after which pluto will verify loaded X.509 CRL's for expiration. If any of the CRL's is expired, or if they previously failed to get updated, a new attempt at updating the CRL is made. The first attempt to update a CRL is started at two times the crlcheckinterval. If set to 0, which is also the default value if this option is not specified, CRL updating is disabled.

strictcrlpolicy
    if not set, pluto is tolerant about missing or expired X.509 Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL's), and will allow peer certificates as long as they do not appear on an expired CRL. When this option is enabled, all connections with an expired or missing CRL will be denied. Active connections will be terminated at rekey time. This setup is more secure, but also dangerous. If the CRL is fetched through an IPsec tunnel with a CRL that expired, the entire VPN server will be dead in the water until a new CRL is manually transferred to the machine (if it allows non-IPsec connections). Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

forwardcontrol
    whether setup should turn IP forwarding on (if it's not already on) as IPsec is started, and turn it off again (if it was off) as IPsec is stopped; acceptable values are yes and (the default) no. For this to have full effect, forwarding must be disabled before the hardware interfaces are brought up (e.g., net.ipv4.ip_forward = 0 in /etc/sysctl.conf), because IPsec doesn't get control early enough to do that. If this option is not specified, and subnet-subnet tunnels are configured, then IP forwarding should be enabled by the system administrator.

rp_filter
    whether and how setup should adjust the reverse path filtering mechanism for the physical devices to be used. Values are %unchanged (to leave it alone) or 0, 1, 2 (values to set it to). /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/PHYS/rp_filter is badly documented; it must be 0 in many cases for ipsec to function. The default value for the parameter is 0, that is, to disable rp_filter for all interfaces used.

syslog
    the syslog(2) “facility” name and priority to use for startup/shutdown log messages, default daemon.error.

klipsdebug
    how much KLIPS debugging output should be logged. An empty value, or the magic value none, means no debugging output (the default). The magic value all means full output. Otherwise only the specified types of output (a quoted list, names separated by white space) are enabled; for details on available debugging types, see ipsec_klipsdebug(8). This KLIPS option has no effect on NETKEY, Windows or BSD stacks.

plutodebug
    how much Pluto debugging output should be logged. An empty value, or the magic value none, means no debugging output (the default). The magic value all means full output. Otherwise only the specified types of output (a quoted list, names without the --debug- prefix, separated by white space) are enabled; for details on available debugging types, see ipsec_pluto(8).

plutorestartoncrash
    prevent pluto from restarting after it crashed. This option should only be used when a post-mortem of a core file is desired. It prevents pluto from restarting and possibly overwriting an older core file.

plutoopts
    additional options to pass to pluto upon startup. See ipsec_pluto(8).

plutostderrlog
    do not use syslog, but rather log to stderr, and direct stderr to the argument file.

dumpdir
    in what directory should things started by setup (notably the Pluto daemon) be allowed to dump core? The empty value (the default) means they are not allowed to.

manualstart
    which manually-keyed connections to set up at startup (empty, a name, or a quoted list of names separated by white space); see ipsec_manual(8). Default is none.

pluto
    whether to start Pluto or not; Values are yes (the default) or no (useful only in special circumstances).

plutowait
    should Pluto wait for each negotiation attempt that is part of startup to finish before proceeding with the next? Values are yes or no (the default).

prepluto
    shell command to run before starting Pluto (e.g., to decrypt an encrypted copy of the ipsec.secrets file). It's run in a very simple way; complexities like I/O redirection are best hidden within a script. Any output is redirected for logging, so running interactive commands is difficult unless they use /dev/tty or equivalent for their interaction. Default is none.

postpluto
    shell command to run after starting Pluto (e.g., to remove a decrypted copy of the ipsec.secrets file). It's run in a very simple way; complexities like I/O redirection are best hidden within a script. Any output is redirected for logging, so running interactive commands is difficult unless they use /dev/tty or equivalent for their interaction. Default is none.

fragicmp
    whether a tunnel's need to fragment a packet should be reported back with an ICMP message, in an attempt to make the sender lower his PMTU estimate; acceptable values are yes (the default) and no. This KLIPS option has no effect on NETKEY, Windows or BSD stacks.

hidetos
    whether a tunnel packet's TOS field should be set to 0 rather than copied from the user packet inside; acceptable values are yes (the default) and no. This KLIPS option has no effect on NETKEY, Windows or BSD stacks.

uniqueids
    whether a particular participant ID should be kept unique, with any new (automatically keyed) connection using an ID from a different IP address deemed to replace all old ones using that ID. Acceptable values are yes (the default) and no. Participant IDs normally are unique, so a new (automatically-keyed) connection using the same ID is almost invariably intended to replace an old one.

overridemtu
    value that the MTU of the ipsecn interface(s) should be set to, overriding IPsec's (large) default. This parameter is needed only in special situations. This KLIPS option has no effect on NETKEY, Windows or BSD stacks.

IMPLICIT CONNS

The system automatically defines several conns to implement default policy groups. These are used to enable the establishing of Opportunitic Encryption IPsec tunnels. That is, setting up IPsec tunnels with peers you have no pre-arranged configuration with. Opportunistic Encryption is currently only supported using the KLIPS or KLIPSNG (mast) stack, and should not be enabled when using NETKEY, Windows or BSD stacks.

Each can be overridden by explicitly defining a new conn with the same name. If the new conn has auto=ignore, the definition is suppressed.

Here are the automatically supplied definitions.

conn clear
	type=passthrough
	authby=never
	left=%defaultroute
	right=%group
	auto=route
conn clear-or-private
	type=passthrough
	left=%defaultroute
	leftid=%myid
	right=%opportunisticgroup
	failureshunt=passthrough
	keyingtries=3
	ikelifetime=1h
	keylife=1h
	rekey=no
	auto=route
conn private-or-clear
	type=tunnel
	left=%defaultroute
	leftid=%myid
	right=%opportunisticgroup
	failureshunt=passthrough
	keyingtries=3
	ikelifetime=1h
	keylife=1h
	rekey=no
	auto=route
conn private
	type=tunnel
	left=%defaultroute
	leftid=%myid
	right=%opportunisticgroup
	failureshunt=drop
	keyingtries=3
	ikelifetime=1h
	keylife=1h
	rekey=no
	auto=route
conn block
	type=reject
	authby=never
	left=%defaultroute
	right=%group
	auto=route
# default policy
conn packetdefault
	type=tunnel
	left=%defaultroute
	leftid=%myid
	left=0.0.0.0/0
	right=%opportunistic
	failureshunt=passthrough
	keyingtries=3
	ikelifetime=1h
	keylife=1h
	rekey=no
	auto=route

These conns are not affected by anything in conn %default. They will only work if %defaultroute works. The leftid will be the interfaces IP address; this requires that reverse DNS records be set up properly.

The implicit conns are defined after all others. It is appropriate and reasonable to use also=private-or-clear (for example) in any other opportunistic conn.

POLICY GROUP FILES

The optional files under /etc/ipsec.d/policy, including
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/clear
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/clear-or-private
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/private-or-clear
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/private
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/block

may contain policy group configuration information to supplement ipsec.conf. Their contents are not security-sensitive.

These files are text files. Each consists of a list of CIDR blocks, one per line. White space followed by # followed by anything to the end of the line is a comment and is ignored, as are empty lines.

A connection in /etc/ipsec.conf which has right=%group or right=%opportunisticgroup is a policy group connection. When a policy group file of the same name is loaded, with

ipsec auto --rereadgroups

or at system start, the connection is instantiated such that each CIDR block serves as an instance's right value. The system treats the resulting instances as normal connections.

For example, given a suitable connection definition private, and the file /etc/ipsec.d/policy/private with an entry 192.0.2.3, the system creates a connection instance private#192.0.2.3. This connection inherits all details from private, except that its right client is 192.0.2.3.

DEFAULT POLICY GROUPS

The standard Openswan install includes several policy groups which provide a way of classifying possible peers into IPsec security classes: private (talk encrypted only), private-or-clear (prefer encryption), clear-or-private (respond to requests for encryption), clear and block. Implicit policy groups apply to the local host only, and are implemented by the IMPLICIT CONNECTIONS described above.

CHOOSING A CONNECTION

When choosing a connection to apply to an outbound packet caught with a %trap, the system prefers the one with the most specific eroute that includes the packet's source and destination IP addresses. Source subnets are examined before destination subnets. For initiating, only routed connections are considered. For responding, unrouted but added connections are considered.

When choosing a connection to use to respond to a negotiation which doesn't match an ordinary conn, an opportunistic connection may be instantiated. Eventually, its instance will be /32 -> /32, but for earlier stages of the negotiation, there will not be enough information about the client subnets to complete the instantiation.

FILES
/etc/ipsec.conf
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/clear
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/clear-or-private
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/private-or-clear
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/private
/etc/ipsec.d/policies/block

SEE ALSO

ipsec(8), ipsec_ttoaddr(8), ipsec_whack(8), ipsec_auto(8), ipsec_manual(8), ipsec_rsasigkey(8)

HISTORY

Designed for the FreeS/WAN project <http://www.freeswan.org: http://www.freeswan.org> by Henry Spencer.

BUGS

When type or failureshunt is set to drop or reject, Openswan blocks outbound packets using eroutes, but assumes inbound blocking is handled by the firewall. Openswan offers firewall hooks via an “updown” script. However, the default ipsec _updown provides no help in controlling a modern firewall.

The use of %any with the protoport= option is ambiguous. Should the SA permits any port through or should the SA negotiate any single port through? The first is a basic conn with a wildcard. The second is a template. The second is the current behaviour, and it's wrong for quite a number of uses involving TCP. The keyword %one may be introduced in the future to seperate these two cases.

Including attributes of the keying channel (authentication methods, ikelifetime, etc.) as an attribute of a connection, rather than of a participant pair, is dubious and incurs limitations.

Ipsec_manual is not nearly as generous about the syntax of subnets, addresses, etc. as the usual Openswan user interfaces. Four-component dotted-decimal must be used for all addresses. It is smart enough to translate bit-count netmasks to dotted-decimal form.

It would be good to have a line-continuation syntax, especially for the very long lines involved in RSA signature keys.

The ability to specify different identities, authby, and public keys for different automatic-keyed connections between the same participants is misleading; this doesn't work dependably because the identity of the participants is not known early enough. This is especially awkward for the “Road Warrior” case, where the remote IP address is specified as 0.0.0.0, and that is considered to be the “participant” for such connections.

In principle it might be necessary to control MTU on an interface-by-interface basis, rather than with the single global override that overridemtu provides.

A number of features which could be implemented in both manual and automatic keying actually are not yet implemented for manual keying. This is unlikely to be fixed any time soon.

If conns are to be added before DNS is available, left=FQDN, leftnextop=FQDN, and leftrsasigkey=%dnsonload will fail. ipsec_pluto(8) does not actually use the public key for our side of a conn but it isn't generally known at a add-time which side is ours (Road Warrior and Opportunistic conns are currently exceptions).

The myid option does not affect explicit ipsec auto --add or ipsec auto --replace commands for implicit conns.