IPSEC.CONF(5)

NAME
ipsec.conf - IPsec configuration and connections

DESCRIPTION

The optional ipsec.conf file specifies most configuration and control information for the Libreswan IPsec subsystem. (The major exception is secrets for authentication; see ipsec.secrets(5).) Its contents are not security-sensitive.

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:

includeipsec.*.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:

typename

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) 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)”

  CONN PARAMETERS: GENERAL

The following parameters are relevant to IKE automatic 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.

connaddrfamily
    the connection addrress family of the connection; currently the accepted values are ipv4 (the default); or ipv6. This option is confusing, especially when doing IPv4-in-IPv6 or IPv6-in-IPv4 tunnels. The developers hope to remove this option in the near future for proper auto-detection. For now, set connaddrfamily= to the family of the *subnet= options, and if those are not defined, to the family of the left=/right= options.

    IPv6 is supported with NETKEY since libreswan 2.4 and with KLIPS since Libreswan 2.6.33

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). Currently, IPv4 and IPv6 IP addresses are supported. There are several magic values. If it is %defaultroute, and the configsetup 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 value can also contain the interface name, which will then later be used to obtain the IP address from to fill in. For example %ppp0 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.

    If using IP addresses in combination with NAT, always use the actual local machine's (NAT'ed) IP address, and if the remote (eg right=) is NAT'ed as well, the remote's public (not NAT'ed) IP address. Note that this makes the configuration no longer symmetrical on both sides, so you cannot use an identical configuration file on both hosts.

leftsubnet
    private subnet behind the left participant, expressed as network/netmask (actually, any form acceptable to ipsec_ttosubnet(3)); Currentlly, IPv4 and IPv6 ranges are supported. if omitted, essentially assumed to be left/32, signifying that the left end of the connection goes to the left participant only

    It supports two magic shorthands vhost: and vnet:, which can list subnets in the same syntax as virtual_private. The value %priv expands to the networks specified in virtual_private. The value %no means no subnet. A common use for allowing roadwarrios to come in on public IPs or via accepted NATed networks from RFC1918 is to use leftsubnet=vhost:%no,%priv. The vnet: option can be used to allow RFC1918 subnets without hardcoding them. When using vnet the connection will instantiate, allowing for multiple tunnels with different subnets.

leftsubnets
    specify multiple private subnets behind the left participant, expressed as { networkA/netmaskAnetworkB/netmaskB[...] } If both a leftsubnets= and rightsubnets= is defined, all combinations of subnet tunnels will be instantiated. You cannot use leftsubnet and leftsubnets together. For examples see testing/pluto/multinet-*.

leftaddresspool
    address pool from with the XAUTH server can assign IP addresses to clients. When configured as an XAUTH server, using leftxauthserver=yes this option specifies the address pool from which IP addresses are taken to assign the the XAUTH clients. The syntax of the address pool specifies a range (not a CIDR), in the following syntax: rightaddresspool=192.168.1.100-192.168.1.200. Generally, the rightaddresspool= option will be accompanied by rightxauthclient=yes, leftxauthserver=yes and leftsubnet=0.0.0.0/0 option.

    When leftaddresspool= is specified, the connection may not specify either leftsubnet= or leftsubnets=. Address pools are fully allocated when the connection is loaded, so the ranges should be sane. For example, specifing a range rightaddresspool=10.0.0.0-11.0.0.0 will lead to massive memory allocation. Address pools specifying the exact same range are shared between different connections. Different addresspools should not be defined to partially overlap.

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 any single UDP port (not UDP port 0). Some clients, most notably OSX, uses a random high port, instead of port 1701 for L2TP.

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 configsetup 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. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are supported.

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. An example to enable routing when using the NETKEY stack, one can use:

    leftupdown="ipsec _updown --route yes"

    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.

If one or both security gateways are doing forwarding firewalling (possibly including masquerading), and this is specified using the firewall parameters, tunnels established with IPsec are exempted from it so that packets can flow unchanged through the tunnels. (This means that all subnets connected in this manner must have distinct, non-overlapping subnet address blocks.) This is done by the default updown script (see ipsec_pluto(8)).

The implementation of this makes certain assumptions about firewall setup, and the availability of the Linux Advanced Routing tools. In situations calling for more control, it may be preferable for the user to supply his own updown script, which makes the appropriate adjustments for his system.

  CONN PARAMETERS: AUTOMATIC KEYING

The following parameters are relevant to automatic keying via IKE. 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.

auto
    what operation, if any, should be done automatically at IPsec startup; currently-accepted values are add (signifying an ipsec auto--add), ondemand (signifying that plus an ipsec auto--ondemand), start (signifying that plus an ipsec auto--up), and ignore (also the default) (signifying no automatic startup operation). See the configsetup 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).

    The option ondemand used to be called route

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 separated 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=aes128-sha1;dh22, ike=3des-md5;modp1024,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

    Weak algorithms are regularly removed from libreswan. Currently, 1DES and modp768 have been removed and modp1024 will be removed in the near future. Additionally, md5 and sha1 will be removed within the next few years. Null encryption is available, and should only be used for testing or benchmarking purposes. Please do not request for insecure algorithms to be re-added to libreswan.

    Diffie-Hellman groups 22, 23 and 24 are also implemented as per RFC-5114. Instead of the modp key syntax, use the "dh" keyword, for example ike=3des-sha1;dh23

    The modp syntax will be removed in favour of the dh syntax.

phase2
    Sets the type of SA that will be produced. Valid options are: esp for encryption (the default), ah for authentication only, and ah+esp for nested AH+ESP. Note that ESP already includes AH - the ah+esp option is for double ah headers, and should only be used when connecting to some racoon configurations that do this.

phase2alg
    Specifies the algorithms that will be offered/accepted for a phase2 negotiation. If not specified, a secure set of defaults will be used. Sets are separated using comma's.

    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.

    The format for ESP is ENC-AUTH followed by an optional PFSgroup. For instance, "3des-md5" or "aes256-sha1;modp2048" or "aes-sha1,aes-md5".

    For RFC-5114 DH groups, use the "dh" keyword, eg "aes256-sha1;dh23"

    The format for AH is AUTH followed by an optional PFSgroup. For instance, "md5" or "sha1;modp1536".

    A special case is AES CCM, which uses the syntax of "phase2alg=aes_ccm_a-152-null"

    A special case is phase2=sha2_256-96 which does not mean 96 bits, but means truncating the sha2_256 hash to 96 bit. This is the same as specifying sha2_truncbug=yes (only supported on NETKEY).

sha2_truncbug
    The default hash truncation for sha2_256 is 128 bits. Linux implemented the draft version which stated 96 bits. This option enables using the bad 96 bits version to interop with older linux kernels (unpatched version 2.6.33 and older) and libreswan versions before 2.6.38. Currently the accepted values are no, (the default) signifying default IETF truncation of 128 bits, or yes, signifying 96 bits broken Linux kernel style truncation.

esp
    This option is obsolete. Please use phase2alg instead.

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.

ike_frag
    Whether or not to allow IKE fragmentation. Valid values are are yes, (the default), no or force.

    IKE fragmentation capablities are negotiated via vendor id. If pluto does not receive the FRAGMENTATION vendor id, no IKE fragments will be sent, regardless of the ike_frag= setting. When set to yes, IKE fragmentation will be attempted on the first re-transmit of an IKE packet of a size larger then 576 bytes for IPv4 and 1280 bytes for IPv6. If ike_frag is set to force, IKE fragmentation is used on initial transmits of such sized packets as well. When we have received IKE fragments for a connection, pluto behaves as if in force mode.

ikepad
    Whether or not to pad IKE messages to a multiple of 4 bytes. Valid values are are yes, (the default) and no.

    Normal RFC compliant behaviour is to use IKE padding. However some devices, for instance Checkpoint, can be configured to firewall Aggressive Mode IKE packets that have been padded. This option disables the required IKE padding for interop which such devices. This option should almost never be enabled.

ikev2
    IKEv2 (RFC4309) settings to be used. Currently the accepted values are permit, (the default) signifying no IKEv2 should be transmitted, but will be accepted if the other ends initiates to us with IKEv2; never or no signifying no IKEv2 negotiation should be transmitted or accepted; propose or yes signifying that we permit IKEv2, and also use it as the default to initiate; insist, signifying we only accept and receive IKEv2 - IKEv1 negotiations will be rejected.

    If the ikev2= setting is set to permit or propose, Libreswan will try and detect a "bid down" attack from IKEv2 to IKEv1. Since there is no standard for transmitting the IKEv2 capability with IKEv1, Libreswan uses a special Vendor ID "CAN-IKEv2". If a fall back from IKEv2 to IKEv1 was detected, and the IKEv1 negotiation contains Vendor ID "CAN-IKEv2", Libreswan will immediately attempt and IKEv2 rekey and refuse to use the IKEv1 connection. With an ikev2= setting of insist, no IKEv1 negotiation is allowed, and no bid down attack is possible.

narrowing
    IKEv2 (RFC5996) Section 2.9 Traffic Selector narrowing options. Currently the accepted values are no, (the default) signifying no narrowing will be proposed or accepted, or yes, signifying IKEv2 negotiation may allow establishing an IPsec connection with narrowed down traffic selectors. This option is ignored for IKEv1.

    There are security implications in allowing narrowing down the proposal. For one, what should be done with packets that we hoped to tunnel, but cannot. Should these be dropped or send in the clear? Second, this could cause thousands of narrowed down Child SA's to be created if the conn has a broad policy (eg 0/0 to 0/0). One possible good use case scenario is that a remote end (that you fully trust) allows you to define a 0/0 to them, while adjusting what traffic you route via them, and what traffic remains outside the tunnel. However, it is always preferred to setup the exact tunnel policy you want, as this will be much clearer to the user.

sareftrack
    Set the method of tracking reply packets with SArefs when using an SAref compatible stack. Currently only the mast stack supports this. Acceptable values are yes (the default), no or conntrack. This option is ignored when SArefs are not supported. This option is passed as PLUTO_SAREF_TRACKING to the updown script which makes the actual decisions whether to perform any iptables/ip_conntrack manipulation. A value of yes means that an IPSEC mangle table will be created. This table will be used to match reply packets. A value of conntrack means that additionally, subsequent packets using this connection will be marked as well, reducing the lookups needed to find the proper SAref by using the ip_conntrack state. A value of no means no IPSEC mangle table is created, and SAref tracking is left to a third-party (kernel) module. In case of a third party module, the SArefs can be relayed using the statsbin= notification helper.

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 which will be resolved. If preceded by @, the value is used as a literal string and will not be resolved. To support opaque identifiers (usually of type ID_KEY_ID, such as used by Cisco to specify Group Name, use square brackets, eg rightid=@[GroupName]. The magic value %fromcert causes the ID to be set to a DN taken from a certificate that is loaded. Prior to 2.5.16, this was the default if a certificate was specified. The magic value %none sets the ID to no ID. This is included for completeness, as the ID may have been set in the default conn, and one wishes for it to default instead of being explicitly set. The magic value %myid stands for the current setting of myid. This is set in config setup or by ipsec_whack(8)), or, if not set, it is the IP address in %defaultroute (if that is supported by a TXT record in its reverse domain), or otherwise it is the system's hostname (if that is supported by a TXT record in its forward domain), or otherwise it is undefined.

    When using certificate based ID's, one need to specify the full RDN, optionally using wildcard matching (eg CN='*'). If the RDN contains a comma, this can be masked using a comma (eg OU='Foo,, Bar and associates')

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. Libreswan will also check the NSS database for RSA keys. These can be software or hardware.

leftca
    specifies the authorized Certificate Authority (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 both left and right.

leftsendcert
    This option configures when Libreswan 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.

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).

leftxauthusername
    The XAUTH username associated with this XAUTH connection. The XAUTH password can be configured in the ipsec.secrets file.

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).

xauthby
    When XAUTH support is available, set the method used by XAUTH to authenticate the user. The currently supported values are file (the default), pam or alwaysok. The password file is located at /etc/ipsec.d/passwd, and follows a syntax similar to the Apache htpasswd file, except an additional connection name argument is also present:

    username:password:conname

    For supported password hashing methods, see crypt(3). If pluto is running in FIPS mode, some hash methods, such as MD5, might not be available. Threads are used to launch an xauth authentication helper for file as well as pam methods.

    The alwaysok should only be used if the XAUTH user authentication is not really used, but is required for interoperability, as it defeats the whole point of XAUTH which is to rely on a secret only known by a human.

xauthfail
    When XAUTH support is available, set the failure method desired when authentication has failed. The currently supported values are hard (the default) and soft. A soft failure means the IPsec SA is allowed to be established, as if authentication had passed successfully, but the XAUTH_FAILED environment variable will be set to 1 for the updown script, which can then be used to redirect the user into a walled garden, for example a payment portal.

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

modecfgdns1, modecfgdns2, modecfgdomain, modecfgbanner
    When configured as modecfg server, specifying any of these options will cause those options and values to be sent to the modecfg client during the XAUTH+ModeCFG phase (phase 1.5).

    When we are an XAUTH client, these options will be treated as defaults. If the remote XAUTH server did not pass us one of these options, the configured defaults are used to reconfigure the local DNS setup.

    The split tunneling directive will be sent automatically if the xauth server side has configured a network other than 0.0.0.0/0

remote_peer_type
    Set the remote peer type. This can enable additional processing during the IKE negotiation. Acceptable values are cisco or ietf (the default). When set to cisco, support for Cisco IPsec gateway redirection and Cisco obtained DNS and domainname are enabled. This includes automatically updating (and restoring) /etc/resolv.conf. These options require that XAUTH is also enabled on this connection.

nm_configured
    Mark this connection as controlled by Network Manager. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default). Currently, setting this to yes will cause libreswan to skip reconfiguring resolv.conf when used with XAUTH and ModeConfig.

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).

nat_keepalive
    whether to send any NAT-T keep-alives. These 1 byte packets are send to prevent the NAT router from closing its port when there is not enough traffic on the IPsec connection. Acceptable values are: yes (the deault) and no. This per-conn option takes precedence over the global (config setup) force_keepalive= option.

initial_contact
    whether to send an INITIAL_CONTACT payload to the peer we are initiating to, if we currently have no IPsec SA's up with that peer. Acceptable values are: no (the default) and yes. It is recommended to leave this option unset, unless the remote peer requires it to allow reconnects. The only known peer at this time is Cisco, which will not allow a reconnect (despite authentication) to replace an existing IPsec SA unless it receives an INITIAL_CONTACT payload. Receiving this payload is ignored and the choice to replace or add an IPsec SA when libreswan is a responder is purely based on the uniqueids setting, which should be left enabled unless libreswan acts as an XAUTH server using PSK ("group secret"). This option can cause a few seconds of downtime on the IPsec tunnel between the time the remote clears the old IPsec SA in response to our INITIAL_CONTACT message, and the time we finish setting up the new IPsec SA. If there is an XAUTH step in between, and especially when XAUTH requires the use of some two-factor token, this downtime could be even longer.

cisco_unity
    whether to send a CISCO_UNITY payload to the peer we are initiating to. Acceptable values are: no (the default) and yes. It is recommended to leave this option unset, unless the remote peer (Cisco) requires it. This is an experimental option. It does not modify local behaviour. It is expected the remote peer might behave differently when it receives this vendor id. This option might be removed in a future release.

overlapip
    a boolean (yes/no) that determines, when *subnet=vhost: is used, if the virtual IP claimed by this states created from this connection can with states created from other connections.

    Note that connection instances created by the Opportunistic Encryption or PKIX (x.509) instantiation system are distinct internally. They will inherit this policy bit.

    The default is no.

    This feature is only available with kernel drivers that support SAs to overlapping conns. At present only the (klips)mast protocol stack supports this feature.

reqid
    a unique identifier used to match IPsec SA's using iptables with NETKEY/XFRM. This identifier is normally automatically allocated in groups of 4. It is exported to the _updown script as REQID. On Linux, reqids are supported with IP Connection Tracking and NAT (iptables). Automaticly generated values use the range 16380 and higher. Manually specified reqid values therefor must be between 1 and 16379.

    Automatically generated reqids use a range of 0-3 (eg 16380-16383 for the first reqid). These are used depending on the exact policy (AH, AH+ESP, IPCOMP, etc). Manually assigned reqids are all identical. Instantiations of connections (those using %any wildcards) will all use the same reqid.

    For KLIPS, when using the MAST variant, a different mechanism called SAref is in use. See overlapip and sareftrack.

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 dpddelay is set, dpdtimeout also needs to be set.

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 dpdtimeout is set, dpdaction also needs to be set.

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. restart means that ALL SA's to the dead peer will renegotiated.

    dpdaction=clear is really only useful on the server of a Road Warrior config.

    The value restart_by_peer has been obsoleted and its functionality moved into the regular restart action.

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, Libreswan will allow a connection defined with pfs=no to use PFS anyway. Acceptable values are yes (the default) and no.

pfsgroup
    This option is obsoleted, please use phase2alg if you need the pfs to be different from phase1 (the default) using: phase2alg=aes128-md5;modp1024

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 proposals with one DH group as there is no room to negotiate the DH group. Therefor it is mandatory for Aggressive Mode connections that both ike= and phase2alg= options are specified with only fully specified proposal using one DH group. Acceptable values are yes or no (the default).

    The ISAKMP SA is created in exchange 1 in aggressive mode. Libreswan has to send the exponent during that exchange, so it has to know what DH group to use before starting. This is why you can not have multiple DH groups in aggressive mode. In IKEv2, which uses a similar method to IKEv1 Aggressive Mode, there is a message to convey the DH group is wrong, and so an IKEv2 connection can actually recover from picking the wrong DH group by restarting its negotiation.

salifetime
    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 salifetime, although if they do not, there will be some clutter of superseded connections on the end which thinks the lifetime is longer.

    The keywords "keylife" and "lifetime" are aliases for "salifetime."

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 salifetime (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 salifetime. 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).

    As of libreswan 3.1, both ends must agree. In previous versions of libreswan, openswan and freeswan, compression was always accepted even if not configured. In light of the BEAST attacks on TLS, using compression and encryptions has come under more scrutiny, and it was decided that it should be possible for the local policy of an endpoint to disallow compression. A value of yes causes pluto to propose compression and reject proposals without it. A value of no prevents pluto from proposing compression; a proposal to compress will be rejected.

metric
    Set the metric for the routes to the ipsecX or mastX interface. This makes it possible to do host failover from another interface to ipsec using route management. This value is passed to the _updown scripts as PLUTO_METRIC. This option is only available with KLIPS or MAST on Linux. Acceptable values are positive numbers, with the default being 1.

mtu
    Set the mtu for the route(s) to the remote endpoint and/or subnets. This is sometimes required when the overhead of the IPsec encapsultion would cause the packet the become too big for a router on the path. Since IPsec cannot trust any unauthenticated ICMP messages, PATH MTU discovery does not work. This can also be needed when using "6to4" IPV6 deployments, which adds another header on the packet size. Acceptable values are positive numbers. There is no default.

priority
    The priority in the kernel SPD/SAD database, when matching up packets. Each kernel (NETKEY, KLIPS, OSX, etc) has its own mechanism for setting the priority. Setting this option to non-zero passes the priority to the kernel stack unmodified. The maximum value depends on the stack. It is recommended not to exceed 65536

    KLIPS and NETKEY use a priority system based on "most specific match first". It uses an internal algorithm to calculate these based on network prefix length, protocol and port selectors. A lower value means a higher priority.

    Typical values are about the 2000 range. These can be seen on the NETKEY stack using ip xfrm policy when the connection is up. For "anonymous IPsec" or Opoprtunistic Encryption based connections, a much lower priority (65535) is used to ensure administrator configured IPsec always takes precedence over opportunistic IPsec.

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.

labeled_ipsec
    Whether labeled IPsec should be enabled or not; acceptable values are no (the default) and yes. See also loopback=, policy_label= and secctx_attr_value=

policy_label
    The string representation of an access control security label that is interpreted by the LSM (e.g. SELinux) for use with Labeled IPsec. See alo loopback=, labeled_ipsec= and secctx_attr_value=. For example, policy_label=system_u:object_r:ipsec_spd_t:s0-s15:c0.c1023

loopback
    Whether labeled IPsec loopback should be enabled or not; acceptable values are no (the default) or yes. Note that some Linux kernels disable some XFRM/NETKEY functions required for loopback that can prevent Labeled IPsec from working correctly. Ensure that both /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/lo/disable_xfrm and /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/lo/disable_policy are set to 0.

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

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
    	protostack=auto

Parameters are optional unless marked “(required)”.

The currently-accepted parameter names in a configsetup 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 ``@''.

protostack
    decide which protocol stack is going to be used. Valid values are "klips", "netkey" (the default) and "mast". The "mast" stack is a variation for the klips stack. The value "auto" has been obsoleted.

interfaces
    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, or when using the NETKEY stack. If %defaultroute is used (implicitly or explicitly) information about the default route and its interface is noted for use by ipsec_auto(8).)

listen
    IP address to listen on (default depends on interfaces= setting). Currently only accepts one IP address.

ikeport
    The IKE port to listen on. The default value is 500. As IKE is an internet standard, changing this means pluto will no longer be able to interop with other devices, unless they have also been explicitely configured to use a non-standard IKE port. There might also be other subtle assumptions within the kernel that port 500 is used. Changing this port is strongly discouraged, and should probably only be done for testing or when required to circumvent VPN blocking technologies as employed by certain commercial companies and national governments. See also nat_ikeport.

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.

disable_port_floating
    whether to enable the newer NAT-T standards for port floating. Acceptable values are no (the default) and yes .

force_keepalive
    This option has been obsoleted since libreswan version 3.2. See the nat_keepalive option to enable/disable NAT-KA packets on a per-connection basis.

nat_ikeport
    The IKE NAT Traversal floating port (see RFC-3947) to listen on. The default value is 4500. As IKE/NATT is an internet standard, changing this means pluto will no longer be able to interop with other devices, unless they have also been explicitely configured to use a non-standard IKE/NATT port. There might also be other subtle assumptions within the kernel that port 4500 is used. Changing this port is strongly discouraged, and should probably only be done for testing or when required to circumvent VPN blocking technologies as employed by certain commercial companies and national governments. See also ikeport.

keep_alive
    The delay (in seconds) for NAT-T keep-alive packets, if these are enabled using force_keepalive This parameter may eventually become per-connection.

retransmits
    Whether pluto should attempt to retransmit packets that get no reply. This is mostly used to disable retransmits while debugging a problem. Production use should always leave this enabled. The default is yes.

virtual_private
    contains the networks that are allowed as subnet= for the remote clients when using the vhost: or vnet: keywords in the subnet= parameters. 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:eeee/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,%v4:172.16.0.0/12,%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. See also leftsubnet=

    Note: It seems that T-Mobile in the US and Rogers/Fido in Canada have started using 25.0.0.0/8 as their pre-NAT range. This range technically belongs to the Defence Interoperable Network Services Authority (DINSA), an agency of the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom. The network range seems to not have been announced for decades, which is probably why these organisasions "borrowed" this range. To support roadwarriors on these 3G networks, you might have to add it to the virtual_private= line.

oe
    This option is ignored for now. It used to determine if Opportunistic Encryption will be enabled. Opportunistic Encryption is the term to describe using IPsec tunnels without prearrangement. It uses IPSECKEY or TXT records to announce public RSA keys for certain IP's or identities. However, this feature is going to be moved outside of the pluto IKE daemon into a separate process, more closely tied with a local DNS(SEC) server. The default value used to be no, so this should not affect anyone. Contact the developers if you are interested in working on the re-implementation of OE.

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.

secctx_attr_value
    The value for the IPsec SA security context attribute identifier which is used for Labeled IPsec. Defaults to the private use IANA value 32001 from the IPsec SA attributes registry. Old openswan versions might still be using the (stolen) value 10, which has since been assigned by IANA for something else. Other values are not recommended unless IANA assigns an actual value for this. See also labeled_ipsec=, loopback= and policy_label=

plutofork
    Wetherpluto will turn into a daemon by forking in the background, or wether it will remain on the foreground. Valid options are yes (the default) or no. Older init systems, such as sysv initscripts, require that pluto forks into the background. Newer init systems, such as systemd or upstart prefer the process remains in the foreground. The current default reflects the fact that most systems are still based on sysv init scripts. Init systems can override this configuration option by starting pluto specifically with --nofork specified on the command line to start the pluto daemon after specifying the --config /etc/ipsec.conf option.

crlcheckinterval
    interval expressed in second units, for example crlcheckinterval=60 for 60 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
    This option is obsolete and ignored. Please use net.ipv4.ip_forward = 0 in /etc/sysctl.conf instead to control the ip forwarding behaviour.

rp_filter
    This option is obsolete and ignored. Please use the net.ipv4.conf/[iface]/rp_filter = 0 options in /etc/sysctl.conf instead. This option is badly documented; it must be 0 in many cases for ipsec to function.

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).

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.

plutorestartoncrash
    prevent pluto from restarting after it crashed. This option should only be used by developers when debugging a crasher. It will prevent overwriting a core file on a new start, or a cascade of core files. This option is also required if used with plutostderrlog= to avoid clearing the logs of the crasher. Values can be yes (the default) or no.

    This option is ignored on modern init systems such as systemd(1) and upstart. For systemd, change the ipsec.service file to contain Restart=no. See systemd.service(5)

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

plutostderrlogtime
    Whether pluto logs messages with the current timestamp as prefix. This might be desired when using plutostderrlog=, which per default does not log timestamps, as the output is used for the test suite and would have to be filtered out. Values are no(the default) or yes .

force_busy
    Emulate a busy system and take counter meassures. The value can be no (the default) or yes. If enabled, pluto will be forced to be "busy". In this state, which happens when there is a Denial of Service attack, pluto will use cookies before accepting new incoming IKE packets. Cookies are send and required for IKEv1 Aggressive Mode and in IKEv2. This option is mostly used for testing purposes, but can be selected by paranoid administrators as well.

dumpdir
    in what directory should things started by setup (notably the Pluto daemon) be allowed to dump core? The default value is /var/run/pluto. When SElinux runs in enforced mode, changing this requires a similar change in the SElinux policy for the pluto daemon.

statsbin
    This option specifies an optional external program to report tunnel state changes too. The default is not to report tunnel state changes. This program can be used to notify the user's desktop or to report tunnel changes to a central logging server.

ipsecdir
    in what directory the X509, NSS and OE related files should be stored. The default value is /etc/ipsec.d. When SElinux runs in enforced mode, changing this requires a similar change in the SElinux policy for the pluto daemon. Note that NSS generated db files contain their location within their files, so you cannot move this directory without re-creating the NSS files.

secretsfile
    in which file the secrets credentials are stored. See man ipsec.secrets for the syntax. The default value is /etc/ipsec.secrets.

perpeerlog
    if pluto should split the logs in a per-peer directory. Valid options are no and yes When disabled, logging is done to syslog or into a single log file, as defined by plutostderrlog=

perpeerlogdir
    in what directory the per-peer log should be created, if enabled via the perpeerlog option. This will result in sub directories in the structure /192/0/2. The default value is /var/log/pluto/peer/. When SElinux runs in enforced mode, changing this requires a similar change in the SElinux policy for the pluto daemon.

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 no (the default) and yes. 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.

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. 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
    	salifetime=1h
    	rekey=no
    	auto=route
    conn private-or-clear
    	type=tunnel
    	left=%defaultroute
    	leftid=%myid
    	right=%opportunisticgroup
    	failureshunt=passthrough
    	keyingtries=3
    	ikelifetime=1h
    	salifetime=1h
    	rekey=no
    	auto=route
    conn private
    	type=tunnel
    	left=%defaultroute
    	leftid=%myid
    	right=%opportunisticgroup
    	failureshunt=drop
    	keyingtries=3
    	ikelifetime=1h
    	salifetime=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
    	salifetime=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 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 Libreswan 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.

OBSOLETE

Various options have recently been obsoleted and are ignored. The options prepluto= and plutopost= have been obsoleted because these were used by the (obsoleted) shell wrappers launching the pluto daemon. If this functionality is needed, look at your initsystem for support. For example, the systemd initsystem has the options ExecStartPre= and ExecStopPost= to accomplish the same. The option plutoopts= has also been obsoleted for this reason. A replacement can be found in the PLUTO_OPTS environment variable in the file /etc/sysconfig/pluto (Fedora/RHEL) or /etc/defaults/pluto (Debian/Ubuntu). The last two options obsoleted by the removal of the old shell scripts are pluto= and plutowait=.

The following ipsec commands have been obsoleted: ipsec _confread, ipsec _include, ipsec _plutoload, ipsec _realsetup, ipsec _startklips and ipsec _startnetkey due to the new parsing and startup methods and ipsec copyright, ipsec lwdnsq, ipsec mailkey, ipsec policy, ipsec showdefaults and ipsec showpolicy because they were no longer needed or current.

CHOOSING A CONNECTION [THIS SECTION IS EXTREMELY OUT OF DATE

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_auto(8), ipsec_rsasigkey(8)

HISTORY

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

BUGS

Before reporting new bugs, please ensure you are using the latest version of Libreswan, and if not using KLIPS, please ensure you are using the latest kernel code for your IPsec stack.

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

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.

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 separate these two cases.

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

First packet caching is only implemented for the KLIPS(NG) and MAST stacks. NETKEY returns POSIX-breaking responses, visiable as connect: Resource temporarily unavailable errors. This affects Opportunistic Encryption and DPD. Functionality on the BSD and Windows stacks is unknown.

Some state information is only available when using KLIPS, and will return errors on other IPsec stacks. These include ipsec eroute, ipsec spi and ipsec look.

Multiple L2TP clients behind the same NAT router, and multiple L2TP clients behind different NAT routers using the same Virtual IP is currently only working for the KLIPSNG stack.

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. This feature is planned for a future release.

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.

AUTHOR

Paul Wouters
    documenter