4 - IKEv2 charon daemon supportis authentication based on raw public keys
5 stored in the SQL database backend. The ipsec listpubkeys command
6 lists the available raw public keys via the stroke interface.
8 - Several MOBIKE improvements: Detect changes in NAT mappings in DPD exchanges,
9 handle events if kernel detects NAT mapping changes in UDP-encapsulated
10 ESP packets (requires kernel patch), reuse old addesses in MOBIKE updates as
11 long as possible and other fixes.
17 - Fixed a Denial-of-Service vulnerability where an IKE_SA_INIT message with
18 a KE payload containing zeroes only can cause a crash of the IKEv2 charon
19 daemon due to a NULL pointer returned by the mpz_export() function of the
20 GNU Multiprecision Library (GMP). Thanks go to Mu Dynamics Research Labs
21 for making us aware of this problem.
23 - The new agent plugin provides a private key implementation on top of an
26 - The NetworkManager plugin has been extended to support certificate client
27 authentication using RSA keys loaded from a file or using ssh-agent.
29 - Daemon capability dropping has been ported to libcap and must be enabled
30 explicitly --with-capabilities=libcap. Future version will support the
31 newer libcap2 library.
33 - ipsec listalgs lists the IKEv2 cryptografic algorithms registered with the
40 - A NetworkManager plugin allows GUI-based configuration of road-warrior
41 clients in a simple way. It features X509 based gateway authentication
42 and EAP client authentication, tunnel setup/teardown and storing passwords
45 - A new EAP-GTC plugin implements draft-sheffer-ikev2-gtc-00.txt and allows
46 username/password authentication against any PAM service on the gateway.
47 The new EAP method interacts nicely with the NetworkManager plugin and allows
48 client authentication against e.g. LDAP.
50 - Improved support for the EAP-Identity method. The new ipsec.conf eap_identity
51 parameter defines an additional identity to pass to the server in EAP
54 - The "ipsec statusall" command now lists CA restrictions, EAP
55 authentication types and EAP identities.
57 - Fixed two multithreading deadlocks occurring when starting up
58 several hundred tunnels concurrently.
60 - Fixed the --enable-integrity-test configure option which
61 computes a SHA-1 checksum over the libstrongswan library.
67 - Consistent logging of IKE and CHILD SAs at the audit (AUD) level.
69 - Improved the performance of the SQL-based virtual IP address pool
70 by introducing an additional addresses table. The leases table
71 storing only history information has become optional and can be
72 disabled by setting charon.plugins.sql.lease_history = no in
75 - The XFRM_STATE_AF_UNSPEC flag added to xfrm.h allows IPv4-over-IPv6
76 and IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnels with the 2.6.26 and later Linux kernels.
78 - management of different virtual IP pools for different
79 network interfaces have become possible.
81 - fixed a bug which prevented the assignment of more than 256
82 virtual IP addresses from a pool managed by an sql database.
84 - fixed a bug which did not delete own IPCOMP SAs in the kernel.
90 - Added statistics functions to ipsec pool --status and ipsec pool --leases
91 and input validation checks to various ipsec pool commands.
93 - ipsec statusall now lists all loaded charon plugins and displays
94 the negotiated IKEv2 cipher suite proposals.
96 - The openssl plugin supports the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman groups
97 19, 20, 21, 25, and 26.
99 - The openssl plugin supports ECDSA authentication using elliptic curve
102 - Fixed a bug in stroke which caused multiple charon threads to close
103 the file descriptors during packet transfers over the stroke socket.
105 - ESP sequence numbers are now migrated in IPsec SA updates handled by
106 MOBIKE. Works only with Linux kernels >= 2.6.17.
112 - Fixed the strongswan.conf path configuration problem that occurred when
113 --sysconfig was not set explicitly in ./configure.
115 - Fixed a number of minor bugs that where discovered during the 4th
116 IKEv2 interoperability workshop in San Antonio, TX.
122 - Plugins for libstrongswan and charon can optionally be loaded according
123 to a configuration in strongswan.conf. Most components provide a
124 "load = " option followed by a space separated list of plugins to load.
125 This allows e.g. the fallback from a hardware crypto accelerator to
126 to software-based crypto plugins.
128 - Charons SQL plugin has been extended by a virtual IP address pool.
129 Configurations with a rightsourceip=%poolname setting query a SQLite or
130 MySQL database for leases. The "ipsec pool" command helps in administrating
131 the pool database. See ipsec pool --help for the available options
133 - The Authenticated Encryption Algorithms AES-CCM-8/12/16 and AES-GCM-8/12/16
134 for ESP are now supported starting with the Linux 2.6.25 kernel. The
135 syntax is e.g. esp=aes128ccm12 or esp=aes256gcm16.
141 - Support for "Hash and URL" encoded certificate payloads has been implemented
142 in the IKEv2 daemon charon. Using the "certuribase" option of a CA section
143 allows to assign a base URL to all certificates issued by the specified CA.
144 The final URL is then built by concatenating that base and the hex encoded
145 SHA1 hash of the DER encoded certificate. Note that this feature is disabled
146 by default and must be enabled using the option "charon.hash_and_url".
148 - The IKEv2 daemon charon now supports the "uniqueids" option to close multiple
149 IKE_SAs with the same peer. The option value "keep" prefers existing
150 connection setups over new ones, where the value "replace" replaces existing
153 - The crypto factory in libstrongswan additionaly supports random number
154 generators, plugins may provide other sources of randomness. The default
155 plugin reads raw random data from /dev/(u)random.
157 - Extended the credential framework by a caching option to allow plugins
158 persistent caching of fetched credentials. The "cachecrl" option has been
161 - The new trustchain verification introduced in 4.2.0 has been parallelized.
162 Threads fetching CRL or OCSP information no longer block other threads.
164 - A new IKEv2 configuration attribute framework has been introduced allowing
165 plugins to provide virtual IP addresses, and in the future, other
166 configuration attribute services (e.g. DNS/WINS servers).
168 - The stroke plugin has been extended to provide virtual IP addresses from
169 a pool defined in ipsec.conf. The "rightsourceip" parameter now accepts
170 address pools in CIDR notation (e.g. 10.1.1.0/24). The parameter also accepts
171 the value "%poolname", where "poolname" identifies a pool provided by a
174 - Fixed compilation on uClibc and a couple of other minor bugs.
176 - Set DPD defaults in ipsec starter to dpd_delay=30s and dpd_timeout=150s.
178 - The IKEv1 pluto daemon now supports the ESP encryption algorithm CAMELLIA
179 with key lengths of 128, 192, and 256 bits, as well as the authentication
180 algorithm AES_XCBC_MAC. Configuration example: esp=camellia192-aesxcbc.
186 - libstrongswan has been modularized to attach crypto algorithms,
187 credential implementations (keys, certificates) and fetchers dynamically
188 through plugins. Existing code has been ported to plugins:
189 - RSA/Diffie-Hellman implementation using the GNU Multi Precision library
190 - X509 certificate system supporting CRLs, OCSP and attribute certificates
191 - Multiple plugins providing crypto algorithms in software
192 - CURL and OpenLDAP fetcher
194 - libstrongswan gained a relational database API which uses pluggable database
195 providers. Plugins for MySQL and SQLite are available.
197 - The IKEv2 keying daemon charon is more extensible. Generic plugins may provide
198 connection configuration, credentials and EAP methods or control the daemon.
199 Existing code has been ported to plugins:
200 - EAP-AKA, EAP-SIM, EAP-MD5 and EAP-Identity
201 - stroke configuration, credential and control (compatible to pluto)
202 - XML bases management protocol to control and query the daemon
203 The following new plugins are available:
204 - An experimental SQL configuration, credential and logging plugin on
205 top of either MySQL or SQLite
206 - A unit testing plugin to run tests at daemon startup
208 - The authentication and credential framework in charon has been heavily
209 refactored to support modular credential providers, proper
210 CERTREQ/CERT payload exchanges and extensible authorization rules.
212 - The framework of strongSwan Manager has envolved to the web application
213 framework libfast (FastCGI Application Server w/ Templates) and is usable
214 by other applications.
220 - IKE rekeying in NAT situations did not inherit the NAT conditions
221 to the rekeyed IKE_SA so that the UDP encapsulation was lost with
222 the next CHILD_SA rekeying.
224 - Wrong type definition of the next_payload variable in id_payload.c
225 caused an INVALID_SYNTAX error on PowerPC platforms.
227 - Implemented IKEv2 EAP-SIM server and client test modules that use
228 triplets stored in a file. For details on the configuration see
229 the scenario 'ikev2/rw-eap-sim-rsa'.
235 - Fixed error in the ordering of the certinfo_t records in the ocsp cache that
236 caused multiple entries of the same serial number to be created.
238 - Implementation of a simple EAP-MD5 module which provides CHAP
239 authentication. This may be interesting in conjunction with certificate
240 based server authentication, as weak passwords can't be brute forced
241 (in contradiction to traditional IKEv2 PSK).
243 - A complete software based implementation of EAP-AKA, using algorithms
244 specified in 3GPP2 (S.S0055). This implementation does not use an USIM,
245 but reads the secrets from ipsec.secrets. Make sure to read eap_aka.h
248 - Support for vendor specific EAP methods using Expanded EAP types. The
249 interface to EAP modules has been slightly changed, so make sure to
250 check the changes if you're already rolling your own modules.
256 - The default _updown script now dynamically inserts and removes ip6tables
257 firewall rules if leftfirewall=yes is set in IPv6 connections. New IPv6
258 net-net and roadwarrior (PSK/RSA) scenarios for both IKEv1 and IKEV2 were
261 - Implemented RFC4478 repeated authentication to force EAP/Virtual-IP clients
262 to reestablish an IKE_SA within a given timeframe.
264 - strongSwan Manager supports configuration listing, initiation and termination
265 of IKE and CHILD_SAs.
267 - Fixes and improvements to multithreading code.
269 - IKEv2 plugins have been renamed to libcharon-* to avoid naming conflicts.
270 Make sure to remove the old plugins in $libexecdir/ipsec, otherwise they get
277 - Removed recursive pthread mutexes since uClibc doesn't support them.
283 - In NAT traversal situations and multiple queued Quick Modes,
284 those pending connections inserted by auto=start after the
285 port floating from 500 to 4500 were erronously deleted.
287 - Added a "forceencaps" connection parameter to enforce UDP encapsulation
288 to surmount restrictive firewalls. NAT detection payloads are faked to
289 simulate a NAT situation and trick the other peer into NAT mode (IKEv2 only).
291 - Preview of strongSwan Manager, a web based configuration and monitoring
292 application. It uses a new XML control interface to query the IKEv2 daemon
293 (see http://trac.strongswan.org/wiki/Manager).
295 - Experimental SQLite configuration backend which will provide the configuration
296 interface for strongSwan Manager in future releases.
298 - Further improvements to MOBIKE support.
304 - Since some third party IKEv2 implementations run into
305 problems with strongSwan announcing MOBIKE capability per
306 default, MOBIKE can be disabled on a per-connection-basis
307 using the mobike=no option. Whereas mobike=no disables the
308 sending of the MOBIKE_SUPPORTED notification and the floating
309 to UDP port 4500 with the IKE_AUTH request even if no NAT
310 situation has been detected, strongSwan will still support
311 MOBIKE acting as a responder.
313 - the default ipsec routing table plus its corresponding priority
314 used for inserting source routes has been changed from 100 to 220.
315 It can be configured using the --with-ipsec-routing-table and
316 --with-ipsec-routing-table-prio options.
318 - the --enable-integrity-test configure option tests the
319 integrity of the libstrongswan crypto code during the charon
322 - the --disable-xauth-vid configure option disables the sending
323 of the XAUTH vendor ID. This can be used as a workaround when
324 interoperating with some Windows VPN clients that get into
325 trouble upon reception of an XAUTH VID without eXtended
326 AUTHentication having been configured.
328 - ipsec stroke now supports the rereadsecrets, rereadaacerts,
329 rereadacerts, and listacerts options.
335 - If a DNS lookup failure occurs when resolving right=%<FQDN>
336 or right=<FQDN> combined with rightallowany=yes then the
337 connection is not updated by ipsec starter thus preventing
338 the disruption of an active IPsec connection. Only if the DNS
339 lookup successfully returns with a changed IP address the
340 corresponding connection definition is updated.
342 - Routes installed by the keying daemons are now in a separate
343 routing table with the ID 100 to avoid conflicts with the main
344 table. Route lookup for IKEv2 traffic is done in userspace to ignore
345 routes installed for IPsec, as IKE traffic shouldn't get encapsulated.
351 - The pluto IKEv1 daemon now exhibits the same behaviour as its
352 IKEv2 companion charon by inserting an explicit route via the
353 _updown script only if a sourceip exists. This is admissible
354 since routing through the IPsec tunnel is handled automatically
355 by NETKEY's IPsec policies. As a consequence the left|rightnexthop
356 parameter is not required any more.
358 - The new IKEv1 parameter right|leftallowany parameters helps to handle
359 the case where both peers possess dynamic IP addresses that are
360 usually resolved using DynDNS or a similar service. The configuration
365 can be used by the initiator to start up a connection to a peer
366 by resolving peer.foo.bar into the currently allocated IP address.
367 Thanks to the rightallowany flag the connection behaves later on
372 so that the peer can rekey the connection as an initiator when his
373 IP address changes. An alternative notation is
377 which will implicitly set rightallowany=yes.
379 - ipsec starter now fails more gracefully in the presence of parsing
380 errors. Flawed ca and conn section are discarded and pluto is started
381 if non-fatal errors only were encountered. If right=%peer.foo.bar
382 cannot be resolved by DNS then right=%any will be used so that passive
383 connections as a responder are still possible.
385 - The new pkcs11initargs parameter that can be placed in the
386 setup config section of /etc/ipsec.conf allows the definition
387 of an argument string that is used with the PKCS#11 C_Initialize()
388 function. This non-standard feature is required by the NSS softoken
389 library. This patch was contributed by Robert Varga.
391 - Fixed a bug in ipsec starter introduced by strongswan-2.8.5
392 which caused a segmentation fault in the presence of unknown
393 or misspelt keywords in ipsec.conf. This bug fix was contributed
396 - Partial support for MOBIKE in IKEv2. The initiator acts on interface/
397 address configuration changes and updates IKE and IPsec SAs dynamically.
403 - IKEv2 peer configuration selection now can be based on a given
404 certification authority using the rightca= statement.
406 - IKEv2 authentication based on RSA signatures now can handle multiple
407 certificates issued for a given peer ID. This allows a smooth transition
408 in the case of a peer certificate renewal.
410 - IKEv2: Support for requesting a specific virtual IP using leftsourceip on the
411 client and returning requested virtual IPs using rightsourceip=%config
412 on the server. If the server does not support configuration payloads, the
413 client enforces its leftsourceip parameter.
415 - The ./configure options --with-uid/--with-gid allow pluto and charon
416 to drop their privileges to a minimum and change to an other UID/GID. This
417 improves the systems security, as a possible intruder may only get the
418 CAP_NET_ADMIN capability.
420 - Further modularization of charon: Pluggable control interface and
421 configuration backend modules provide extensibility. The control interface
422 for stroke is included, and further interfaces using DBUS (NetworkManager)
423 or XML are on the way. A backend for storing configurations in the daemon
424 is provided and more advanced backends (using e.g. a database) are trivial
427 - Fixed a compilation failure in libfreeswan occuring with Linux kernel
434 - Support for an additional Diffie-Hellman exchange when creating/rekeying
435 a CHILD_SA in IKEv2 (PFS). PFS is enabled when the proposal contains a
436 DH group (e.g. "esp=aes128-sha1-modp1536"). Further, DH group negotiation
437 is implemented properly for rekeying.
439 - Support for the AES-XCBC-96 MAC algorithm for IPsec SAs when using IKEv2
440 (requires linux >= 2.6.20). It is enabled using e.g. "esp=aes256-aesxcbc".
442 - Working IPv4-in-IPv6 and IPv6-in-IPv4 tunnels for linux >= 2.6.21.
444 - Added support for EAP modules which do not establish an MSK.
446 - Removed the dependencies from the /usr/include/linux/ headers by
447 including xfrm.h, ipsec.h, and pfkeyv2.h in the distribution.
449 - crlNumber is now listed by ipsec listcrls
451 - The xauth_modules.verify_secret() function now passes the
458 - Server side cookie support. If to may IKE_SAs are in CONNECTING state,
459 cookies are enabled and protect against DoS attacks with faked source
460 addresses. Number of IKE_SAs in CONNECTING state is also limited per
461 peer address to avoid resource exhaustion. IKE_SA_INIT messages are
462 compared to properly detect retransmissions and incoming retransmits are
463 detected even if the IKE_SA is blocked (e.g. doing OCSP fetches).
465 - The IKEv2 daemon charon now supports dynamic http- and ldap-based CRL
466 fetching enabled by crlcheckinterval > 0 and caching fetched CRLs
467 enabled by cachecrls=yes.
469 - Added the configuration options --enable-nat-transport which enables
470 the potentially insecure NAT traversal for IPsec transport mode and
471 --disable-vendor-id which disables the sending of the strongSwan
474 - Fixed a long-standing bug in the pluto IKEv1 daemon which caused
475 a segmentation fault if a malformed payload was detected in the
476 IKE MR2 message and pluto tried to send an encrypted notification
479 - Added the NATT_IETF_02_N Vendor ID in order to support IKEv1 connections
480 with Windows 2003 Server which uses a wrong VID hash.
486 - Support of SHA2_384 hash function for protecting IKEv1
487 negotiations and support of SHA2 signatures in X.509 certificates.
489 - Fixed a serious bug in the computation of the SHA2-512 HMAC
490 function. Introduced automatic self-test of all IKEv1 hash
491 and hmac functions during pluto startup. Failure of a self-test
492 currently issues a warning only but does not exit pluto [yet].
494 - Support for SHA2-256/384/512 PRF and HMAC functions in IKEv2.
496 - Full support of CA information sections. ipsec listcainfos
497 now shows all collected crlDistributionPoints and OCSP
500 - Support of the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) for IKEv2.
501 This feature requires the HTTP fetching capabilities of the libcurl
502 library which must be enabled by setting the --enable-http configure
505 - Refactored core of the IKEv2 message processing code, allowing better
506 code reuse and separation.
508 - Virtual IP support in IKEv2 using INTERNAL_IP4/6_ADDRESS configuration
509 payload. Additionally, the INTERNAL_IP4/6_DNS attribute is interpreted
510 by the requestor and installed in a resolv.conf file.
512 - The IKEv2 daemon charon installs a route for each IPsec policy to use
513 the correct source address even if an application does not explicitly
516 - Integrated the EAP framework into charon which loads pluggable EAP library
517 modules. The ipsec.conf parameter authby=eap initiates EAP authentication
518 on the client side, while the "eap" parameter on the server side defines
519 the EAP method to use for client authentication.
520 A generic client side EAP-Identity module and an EAP-SIM authentication
521 module using a third party card reader implementation are included.
523 - Added client side support for cookies.
525 - Integrated the fixes done at the IKEv2 interoperability bakeoff, including
526 strict payload order, correct INVALID_KE_PAYLOAD rejection and other minor
527 fixes to enhance interoperability with other implementations.
533 - strongSwan now interoperates with the NCP Secure Entry Client,
534 the Shrew Soft VPN Client, and the Cisco VPN client, doing both
535 XAUTH and Mode Config.
537 - UNITY attributes are now recognized and UNITY_BANNER is set
544 - IKEv1: Support for extended authentication (XAUTH) in combination
545 with ISAKMP Main Mode RSA or PSK authentication. Both client and
546 server side were implemented. Handling of user credentials can
547 be done by a run-time loadable XAUTH module. By default user
548 credentials are stored in ipsec.secrets.
550 - IKEv2: Support for reauthentication when rekeying
552 - IKEv2: Support for transport mode
554 - fixed a lot of bugs related to byte order
556 - various other bugfixes
562 - IKEv1: Implementation of ModeConfig push mode via the new connection
563 keyword modeconfig=push allows interoperability with Cisco VPN gateways.
565 - IKEv1: The command ipsec statusall now shows "DPD active" for all
566 ISAKMP SAs that are under active Dead Peer Detection control.
568 - IKEv2: Charon's logging and debugging framework has been completely rewritten.
569 Instead of logger, special printf() functions are used to directly
570 print objects like hosts (%H) identifications (%D), certificates (%Q),
571 etc. The number of debugging levels have been reduced to:
573 0 (audit), 1 (control), 2 (controlmore), 3 (raw), 4 (private)
575 The debugging levels can either be specified statically in ipsec.conf as
578 charondebug="lib 1, cfg 3, net 2"
580 or changed at runtime via stroke as
582 ipsec stroke loglevel cfg 2
588 - Implemented full support for IPv6-in-IPv6 tunnels.
590 - Added configuration options for dead peer detection in IKEv2. dpd_action
591 types "clear", "hold" and "restart" are supported. The dpd_timeout
592 value is not used, as the normal retransmission policy applies to
593 detect dead peers. The dpd_delay parameter enables sending of empty
594 informational message to detect dead peers in case of inactivity.
596 - Added support for preshared keys in IKEv2. PSK keys configured in
597 ipsec.secrets are loaded. The authby parameter specifies the authentication
598 method to authentificate ourself, the other peer may use PSK or RSA.
600 - Changed retransmission policy to respect the keyingtries parameter.
602 - Added private key decryption. PEM keys encrypted with AES-128/192/256
603 or 3DES are supported.
605 - Implemented DES/3DES algorithms in libstrongswan. 3DES can be used to
608 - Implemented SHA-256/384/512 in libstrongswan, allows usage of certificates
609 signed with such a hash algorithm.
611 - Added initial support for updown scripts. The actions up-host/client and
612 down-host/client are executed. The leftfirewall=yes parameter
613 uses the default updown script to insert dynamic firewall rules, a custom
614 updown script may be specified with the leftupdown parameter.
620 - Added support for the auto=route ipsec.conf parameter and the
621 ipsec route/unroute commands for IKEv2. This allows to set up IKE_SAs and
622 CHILD_SAs dynamically on demand when traffic is detected by the
625 - Added support for rekeying IKE_SAs in IKEv2 using the ikelifetime parameter.
626 As specified in IKEv2, no reauthentication is done (unlike in IKEv1), only
627 new keys are generated using perfect forward secrecy. An optional flag
628 which enforces reauthentication will be implemented later.
630 - "sha" and "sha1" are now treated as synonyms in the ike= and esp=
631 algorithm configuration statements.
637 - Full X.509 certificate trust chain verification has been implemented.
638 End entity certificates can be exchanged via CERT payloads. The current
639 default is leftsendcert=always, since CERTREQ payloads are not supported
640 yet. Optional CRLs must be imported locally into /etc/ipsec.d/crls.
642 - Added support for leftprotoport/rightprotoport parameters in IKEv2. IKEv2
643 would offer more possibilities for traffic selection, but the Linux kernel
644 currently does not support it. That's why we stick with these simple
645 ipsec.conf rules for now.
647 - Added Dead Peer Detection (DPD) which checks liveliness of remote peer if no
648 IKE or ESP traffic is received. DPD is currently hardcoded (dpdaction=clear,
651 - Initial NAT traversal support in IKEv2. Charon includes NAT detection
652 notify payloads to detect NAT routers between the peers. It switches
653 to port 4500, uses UDP encapsulated ESP packets, handles peer address
654 changes gracefully and sends keep alive message periodically.
656 - Reimplemented IKE_SA state machine for charon, which allows simultaneous
657 rekeying, more shared code, cleaner design, proper retransmission
658 and a more extensible code base.
660 - The mixed PSK/RSA roadwarrior detection capability introduced by the
661 strongswan-2.7.0 release necessitated the pre-parsing of the IKE proposal
662 payloads by the responder right before any defined IKE Main Mode state had
663 been established. Although any form of bad proposal syntax was being correctly
664 detected by the payload parser, the subsequent error handler didn't check
665 the state pointer before logging current state information, causing an
666 immediate crash of the pluto keying daemon due to a NULL pointer.
672 - Added algorithm selection to charon: New default algorithms for
673 ike=aes128-sha-modp2048, as both daemons support it. The default
674 for IPsec SAs is now esp=aes128-sha,3des-md5. charon handles
675 the ike/esp parameter the same way as pluto. As this syntax does
676 not allow specification of a pseudo random function, the same
677 algorithm as for integrity is used (currently sha/md5). Supported
679 Encryption: aes128, aes192, aes256
680 Integrity/PRF: md5, sha (using hmac)
681 DH-Groups: modp768, 1024, 1536, 2048, 4096, 8192
683 Encryption: aes128, aes192, aes256, 3des, blowfish128,
684 blowfish192, blowfish256
686 More IKE encryption algorithms will come after porting libcrypto into
689 - initial support for rekeying CHILD_SAs using IKEv2. Currently no
690 perfect forward secrecy is used. The rekeying parameters rekey,
691 rekeymargin, rekeyfuzz and keylife from ipsec.conf are now supported
692 when using IKEv2. WARNING: charon currently is unable to handle
693 simultaneous rekeying. To avoid such a situation, use a large
694 rekeyfuzz, or even better, set rekey=no on one peer.
696 - support for host2host, net2net, host2net (roadwarrior) tunnels
697 using predefined RSA certificates (see uml scenarios for
698 configuration examples).
700 - new build environment featuring autotools. Features such
701 as HTTP, LDAP and smartcard support may be enabled using
702 the ./configure script. Changing install directories
703 is possible, too. See ./configure --help for more details.
705 - better integration of charon with ipsec starter, which allows
706 (almost) transparent operation with both daemons. charon
707 handles ipsec commands up, down, status, statusall, listall,
708 listcerts and allows proper load, reload and delete of connections
715 - initial support of the IKEv2 protocol. Connections in
716 ipsec.conf designated by keyexchange=ikev2 are negotiated
717 by the new IKEv2 charon keying daemon whereas those marked
718 by keyexchange=ikev1 or the default keyexchange=ike are
719 handled thy the IKEv1 pluto keying daemon. Currently only
720 a limited subset of functions are available with IKEv2
721 (Default AES encryption, authentication based on locally
722 imported X.509 certificates, unencrypted private RSA keys
723 in PKCS#1 file format, limited functionality of the ipsec
730 - the dynamic iptables rules from the _updown_x509 template
731 for KLIPS and the _updown_policy template for NETKEY have
732 been merged into the default _updown script. The existing
733 left|rightfirewall keyword causes the automatic insertion
734 and deletion of ACCEPT rules for tunneled traffic upon
735 the successful setup and teardown of an IPsec SA, respectively.
736 left|rightfirwall can be used with KLIPS under any Linux 2.4
737 kernel or with NETKEY under a Linux kernel version >= 2.6.16
738 in conjuction with iptables >= 1.3.5. For NETKEY under a Linux
739 kernel version < 2.6.16 which does not support IPsec policy
740 matching yet, please continue to use a copy of the _updown_espmark
741 template loaded via the left|rightupdown keyword.
743 - a new left|righthostaccess keyword has been introduced which
744 can be used in conjunction with left|rightfirewall and the
745 default _updown script. By default leftfirewall=yes inserts
746 a bi-directional iptables FORWARD rule for a local client network
747 with a netmask different from 255.255.255.255 (single host).
748 This does not allow to access the VPN gateway host via its
749 internal network interface which is part of the client subnet
750 because an iptables INPUT and OUTPUT rule would be required.
751 lefthostaccess=yes will cause this additional ACCEPT rules to
754 - mixed PSK|RSA roadwarriors are now supported. The ISAKMP proposal
755 payload is preparsed in order to find out whether the roadwarrior
756 requests PSK or RSA so that a matching connection candidate can
763 - the new _updown_policy template allows ipsec policy based
764 iptables firewall rules. Required are iptables version
765 >= 1.3.5 and linux kernel >= 2.6.16. This script obsoletes
766 the _updown_espmark template, so that no INPUT mangle rules
767 are required any more.
769 - added support of DPD restart mode
771 - ipsec starter now allows the use of wildcards in include
772 statements as e.g. in "include /etc/my_ipsec/*.conf".
773 Patch courtesy of Matthias Haas.
775 - the Netscape OID 'employeeNumber' is now recognized and can be
776 used as a Relative Distinguished Name in certificates.
782 - /etc/init.d/ipsec or /etc/rc.d/ipsec is now a copy of the ipsec
783 command and not of ipsec setup any more.
785 - ipsec starter now supports AH authentication in conjunction with
786 ESP encryption. AH authentication is configured in ipsec.conf
787 via the auth=ah parameter.
789 - The command ipsec scencrypt|scdecrypt <args> is now an alias for
790 ipsec whack --scencrypt|scdecrypt <args>.
792 - get_sa_info() now determines for the native netkey IPsec stack
793 the exact time of the last use of an active eroute. This information
794 is used by the Dead Peer Detection algorithm and is also displayed by
795 the ipsec status command.
801 - running under the native Linux 2.6 IPsec stack, the function
802 get_sa_info() is called by ipsec auto --status to display the current
803 number of transmitted bytes per IPsec SA.
805 - get_sa_info() is also used by the Dead Peer Detection process to detect
806 recent ESP activity. If ESP traffic was received from the peer within
807 the last dpd_delay interval then no R_Y_THERE notification must be sent.
809 - strongSwan now supports the Relative Distinguished Name "unstructuredName"
810 in ID_DER_ASN1_DN identities. The following notations are possible:
812 rightid="unstructuredName=John Doe"
813 rightid="UN=John Doe"
815 - fixed a long-standing bug which caused PSK-based roadwarrior connections
816 to segfault in the function id.c:same_id() called by keys.c:get_secret()
817 if an FQDN, USER_FQDN, or Key ID was defined, as in the following example.
824 - the ipsec command now supports most ipsec auto commands (e.g. ipsec listall).
826 - ipsec starter didn't set host_addr and client.addr ports in whack msg.
828 - in order to guarantee backwards-compatibility with the script-based
829 auto function (e.g. auto --replace), the ipsec starter scripts stores
830 the defaultroute information in the temporary file /var/run/ipsec.info.
832 - The compile-time option USE_XAUTH_VID enables the sending of the XAUTH
833 Vendor ID which is expected by Cisco PIX 7 boxes that act as IKE Mode Config
836 - the ipsec starter now also recognizes the parameters authby=never and
837 type=passthrough|pass|drop|reject.
843 - ipsec starter now supports the also parameter which allows
844 a modular structure of the connection definitions. Thus
845 "ipsec start" is now ready to replace "ipsec setup".
851 - Mathieu Lafon's popular ipsec starter tool has been added to the
852 strongSwan distribution. Many thanks go to Stephan Scholz from astaro
853 for his integration work. ipsec starter is a C program which is going
854 to replace the various shell and awk starter scripts (setup, _plutoload,
855 _plutostart, _realsetup, _startklips, _confread, and auto). Since
856 ipsec.conf is now parsed only once, the starting of multiple tunnels is
857 accelerated tremedously.
859 - Added support of %defaultroute to the ipsec starter. If the IP address
860 changes, a HUP signal to the ipsec starter will automatically
861 reload pluto's connections.
863 - moved most compile time configurations from pluto/Makefile to
864 Makefile.inc by defining the options USE_LIBCURL, USE_LDAP,
865 USE_SMARTCARD, and USE_NAT_TRAVERSAL_TRANSPORT_MODE.
867 - removed the ipsec verify and ipsec newhostkey commands
869 - fixed some 64-bit issues in formatted print statements
871 - The scepclient functionality implementing the Simple Certificate
872 Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) is nearly complete but hasn't been
879 - CA certicates are now automatically loaded from a smartcard
880 or USB crypto token and appear in the ipsec auto --listcacerts
887 - when using "ipsec whack --scencrypt <data>" with a PKCS#11
888 library that does not support the C_Encrypt() Cryptoki
889 function (e.g. OpenSC), the RSA encryption is done in
890 software using the public key fetched from the smartcard.
892 - The scepclient function now allows to define the
893 validity of a self-signed certificate using the --days,
894 --startdate, and --enddate options. The default validity
895 has been changed from one year to five years.
901 - the config setup parameter pkcs11proxy=yes opens pluto's PKCS#11
902 interface to other applications for RSA encryption and decryption
903 via the whack interface. Notation:
905 ipsec whack --scencrypt <data>
906 [--inbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
907 [--outbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
910 ipsec whack --scdecrypt <data>
911 [--inbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
912 [--outbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
915 The default setting for inbase and outbase is hex.
917 The new proxy interface can be used for securing symmetric
918 encryption keys required by the cryptoloop or dm-crypt
919 disk encryption schemes, especially in the case when
920 pkcs11keepstate=yes causes pluto to lock the pkcs11 slot
923 - if the file /etc/ipsec.secrets is lacking during the startup of
924 pluto then the root-readable file /etc/ipsec.d/private/myKey.der
925 containing a 2048 bit RSA private key and a matching self-signed
926 certificate stored in the file /etc/ipsec.d/certs/selfCert.der
927 is automatically generated by calling the function
929 ipsec scepclient --out pkcs1 --out cert-self
931 scepclient was written by Jan Hutter and Martin Willi, students
932 at the University of Applied Sciences in Rapperswil, Switzerland.
938 - the current extension of the PKCS#7 framework introduced
939 a parsing error in PKCS#7 wrapped X.509 certificates that are
940 e.g. transmitted by Windows XP when multi-level CAs are used.
941 the parsing syntax has been fixed.
943 - added a patch by Gerald Richter which tolerates multiple occurrences
944 of the ipsec0 interface when using KLIPS.
950 - with gawk-3.1.4 the word "default2 has become a protected
951 keyword for use in switch statements and cannot be used any
952 more in the strongSwan scripts. This problem has been
953 solved by renaming "default" to "defaults" and "setdefault"
954 in the scripts _confread and auto, respectively.
956 - introduced the parameter leftsendcert with the values
958 always|yes (the default, always send a cert)
959 ifasked (send the cert only upon a cert request)
960 never|no (never send a cert, used for raw RSA keys and
963 - fixed the initialization of the ESP key length to a default of
964 128 bits in the case that the peer does not send a key length
965 attribute for AES encryption.
967 - applied Herbert Xu's uniqueIDs patch
969 - applied Herbert Xu's CLOEXEC patches
975 - CRLs can now be cached also in the case when the issuer's
976 certificate does not contain a subjectKeyIdentifier field.
977 In that case the subjectKeyIdentifier is computed by pluto as the
978 160 bit SHA-1 hash of the issuer's public key in compliance
979 with section 4.2.1.2 of RFC 3280.
981 - Fixed a bug introduced by strongswan-2.5.1 which eliminated
982 not only multiple Quick Modes of a given connection but also
983 multiple connections between two security gateways.
989 - Under the native IPsec of the Linux 2.6 kernel, a %trap eroute
990 installed either by setting auto=route in ipsec.conf or by
991 a connection put into hold, generates an XFRM_AQUIRE event
992 for each packet that wants to use the not-yet exisiting
993 tunnel. Up to now each XFRM_AQUIRE event led to an entry in
994 the Quick Mode queue, causing multiple IPsec SA to be
995 established in rapid succession. Starting with strongswan-2.5.1
996 only a single IPsec SA is established per host-pair connection.
998 - Right after loading the PKCS#11 module, all smartcard slots are
999 searched for certificates. The result can be viewed using
1002 ipsec auto --listcards
1004 The certificate objects found in the slots are numbered
1005 starting with #1, #2, etc. This position number can be used to address
1006 certificates (leftcert=%smartcard) and keys (: PIN %smartcard)
1007 in ipsec.conf and ipsec.secrets, respectively:
1009 %smartcard (selects object #1)
1010 %smartcard#1 (selects object #1)
1011 %smartcard#3 (selects object #3)
1013 As an alternative the existing retrieval scheme can be used:
1015 %smartcard:45 (selects object with id=45)
1016 %smartcard0 (selects first object in slot 0)
1017 %smartcard4:45 (selects object in slot 4 with id=45)
1019 - Depending on the settings of CKA_SIGN and CKA_DECRYPT
1020 private key flags either C_Sign() or C_Decrypt() is used
1021 to generate a signature.
1023 - The output buffer length parameter siglen in C_Sign()
1024 is now initialized to the actual size of the output
1025 buffer prior to the function call. This fixes the
1026 CKR_BUFFER_TOO_SMALL error that could occur when using
1027 the OpenSC PKCS#11 module.
1029 - Changed the initialization of the PKCS#11 CK_MECHANISM in
1030 C_SignInit() to mech = { CKM_RSA_PKCS, NULL_PTR, 0 }.
1032 - Refactored the RSA public/private key code and transferred it
1033 from keys.c to the new pkcs1.c file as a preparatory step
1034 towards the release of the SCEP client.
1040 - The loading of a PKCS#11 smartcard library module during
1041 runtime does not require OpenSC library functions any more
1042 because the corresponding code has been integrated into
1043 smartcard.c. Also the RSAREF pkcs11 header files have been
1044 included in a newly created pluto/rsaref directory so that
1045 no external include path has to be defined any longer.
1047 - A long-awaited feature has been implemented at last:
1048 The local caching of CRLs fetched via HTTP or LDAP, activated
1049 by the parameter cachecrls=yes in the config setup section
1050 of ipsec.conf. The dynamically fetched CRLs are stored under
1051 a unique file name containing the issuer's subjectKeyID
1052 in /etc/ipsec.d/crls.
1054 - Applied a one-line patch courtesy of Michael Richardson
1055 from the Openswan project which fixes the kernel-oops
1056 in KLIPS when an snmp daemon is running on the same box.
1062 - Eliminated null length CRL distribution point strings.
1064 - Fixed a trust path evaluation bug introduced with 2.4.3
1070 - Improved the joint OCSP / CRL revocation policy.
1071 OCSP responses have precedence over CRL entries.
1073 - Introduced support of CRLv2 reason codes.
1075 - Fixed a bug with key-pad equipped readers which caused
1076 pluto to prompt for the pin via the console when the first
1077 occasion to enter the pin via the key-pad was missed.
1079 - When pluto is built with LDAP_V3 enabled, the library
1080 liblber required by newer versions of openldap is now
1087 - Added the _updown_espmark template which requires all
1088 incoming ESP traffic to be marked with a default mark
1091 - Introduced the pkcs11keepstate parameter in the config setup
1092 section of ipsec.conf. With pkcs11keepstate=yes the PKCS#11
1093 session and login states are kept as long as possible during
1094 the lifetime of pluto. This means that a PIN entry via a key
1095 pad has to be done only once.
1097 - Introduced the pkcs11module parameter in the config setup
1098 section of ipsec.conf which specifies the PKCS#11 module
1099 to be used with smart cards. Example:
1101 pkcs11module=/usr/lib/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.lo
1103 - Added support of smartcard readers equipped with a PIN pad.
1105 - Added patch by Jay Pfeifer which detects when netkey
1106 modules have been statically built into the Linux 2.6 kernel.
1108 - Added two patches by Herbert Xu. The first uses ip xfrm
1109 instead of setkey to flush the IPsec policy database. The
1110 second sets the optional flag in inbound IPComp SAs only.
1112 - Applied Ulrich Weber's patch which fixes an interoperability
1113 problem between native IPsec and KLIPS systems caused by
1114 setting the replay window to 32 instead of 0 for ipcomp.
1120 - Fixed a bug which caused an unwanted Mode Config request
1121 to be initiated in the case where "right" was used to denote
1122 the local side in ipsec.conf and "left" the remote side,
1123 contrary to the recommendation that "right" be remote and
1130 - updated Vendor ID to strongSwan-2.4.0
1132 - updated copyright statement to include David Buechi and
1139 - strongSwan now communicates with attached smartcards and
1140 USB crypto tokens via the standardized PKCS #11 interface.
1141 By default the OpenSC library from www.opensc.org is used
1142 but any other PKCS#11 library could be dynamically linked.
1143 strongSwan's PKCS#11 API was implemented by David Buechi
1144 and Michael Meier, both graduates of the Zurich University
1145 of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland.
1147 - When a %trap eroute is triggered by an outgoing IP packet
1148 then the native IPsec stack of the Linux 2.6 kernel [often/
1149 always?] returns an XFRM_ACQUIRE message with an undefined
1150 protocol family field and the connection setup fails.
1151 As a workaround IPv4 (AF_INET) is now assumed.
1153 - the results of the UML test scenarios are now enhanced
1154 with block diagrams of the virtual network topology used
1155 in a particular test.
1161 - fixed IV used to decrypt informational messages.
1162 This bug was introduced with Mode Config functionality.
1164 - fixed NCP Vendor ID.
1166 - undid one of Ulrich Weber's maximum udp size patches
1167 because it caused a segmentation fault with NAT-ed
1170 - added UML scenarios wildcards and attr-cert which
1171 demonstrate the implementation of IPsec policies based
1172 on wildcard parameters contained in Distinguished Names and
1173 on X.509 attribute certificates, respectively.
1179 - Added basic Mode Config functionality
1181 - Added Mathieu Lafon's patch which upgrades the status of
1182 the NAT-Traversal implementation to RFC 3947.
1184 - The _startklips script now also loads the xfrm4_tunnel
1187 - Added Ulrich Weber's netlink replay window size and
1188 maximum udp size patches.
1190 - UML testing now uses the Linux 2.6.10 UML kernel by default.
1196 - Eric Marchionni and Patrik Rayo, both recent graduates from
1197 the Zuercher Hochschule Winterthur in Switzerland, created a
1198 User-Mode-Linux test setup for strongSwan. For more details
1199 please read the INSTALL and README documents in the testing
1202 - Full support of group attributes based on X.509 attribute
1203 certificates. Attribute certificates can be generated
1204 using the openac facility. For more details see
1208 The group attributes can be used in connection definitions
1209 in order to give IPsec access to specific user groups.
1210 This is done with the new parameter left|rightgroups as in
1212 rightgroups="Research, Sales"
1214 giving access to users possessing the group attributes
1215 Research or Sales, only.
1217 - In Quick Mode clients with subnet mask /32 are now
1218 coded as IP_V4_ADDRESS or IP_V6_ADDRESS. This should
1219 fix rekeying problems with the SafeNet/SoftRemote and NCP
1220 Secure Entry Clients.
1222 - Changed the defaults of the ikelifetime and keylife parameters
1223 to 3h and 1h, respectively. The maximum allowable values are
1224 now both set to 24 h.
1226 - Suppressed notification wars between two IPsec peers that
1227 could e.g. be triggered by incorrect ISAKMP encryption.
1229 - Public RSA keys can now have identical IDs if either the
1230 issuing CA or the serial number is different. The serial
1231 number of a certificate is now shown by the command
1233 ipsec auto --listpubkeys
1239 - Added Tuomo Soini's sourceip feature which allows a strongSwan
1240 roadwarrior to use a fixed Virtual IP (see README section 2.6)
1241 and reduces the well-known four tunnel case on VPN gateways to
1242 a single tunnel definition (see README section 2.4).
1244 - Fixed a bug occuring with NAT-Traversal enabled when the responder
1245 suddenly turns initiator and the initiator cannot find a matching
1246 connection because of the floated IKE port 4500.
1248 - Removed misleading ipsec verify command from barf.
1250 - Running under the native IP stack, ipsec --version now shows
1251 the Linux kernel version (courtesy to the Openswan project).
1257 - Introduced the ipsec auto --listalgs monitoring command which lists
1258 all currently registered IKE and ESP algorithms.
1260 - Fixed a bug in the ESP algorithm selection occuring when the strict flag
1261 is set and the first proposed transform does not match.
1263 - Fixed another deadlock in the use of the lock_certs_and_keys() mutex,
1264 occuring when a smartcard is present.
1266 - Prevented that a superseded Phase1 state can trigger a DPD_TIMEOUT event.
1268 - Fixed the printing of the notification names (null)
1270 - Applied another of Herbert Xu's Netlink patches.
1276 - Support of Dead Peer Detection. The connection parameter
1278 dpdaction=clear|hold
1280 activates DPD for the given connection.
1282 - The default Opportunistic Encryption (OE) policy groups are not
1283 automatically included anymore. Those wishing to activate OE can include
1284 the policy group with the following statement in ipsec.conf:
1286 include /etc/ipsec.d/examples/oe.conf
1288 The default for [right|left]rsasigkey is now set to %cert.
1290 - strongSwan now has a Vendor ID of its own which can be activated
1291 using the compile option VENDORID
1293 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch which sets the compression algorithm correctly.
1295 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch fixing an ESPINUDP problem
1297 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch setting source/destination port numbers.
1299 - Reapplied one of Herbert Xu's NAT-Traversal patches which got
1300 lost during the migration from SuperFreeS/WAN.
1302 - Fixed a deadlock in the use of the lock_certs_and_keys() mutex.
1304 - Fixed the unsharing of alg parameters when instantiating group
1311 - Thomas Walpuski made me aware of a potential DoS attack via
1312 a PKCS#7-wrapped certificate bundle which could overwrite valid CA
1313 certificates in Pluto's authority certificate store. This vulnerability
1314 was fixed by establishing trust in CA candidate certificates up to a
1315 trusted root CA prior to insertion into Pluto's chained list.
1317 - replaced the --assign option by the -v option in the auto awk script
1318 in order to make it run with mawk under debian/woody.
1324 - Split of the status information between ipsec auto --status (concise)
1325 and ipsec auto --statusall (verbose). Both commands can be used with
1326 an optional connection selector:
1328 ipsec auto --status[all] <connection_name>
1330 - Added the description of X.509 related features to the ipsec_auto(8)
1333 - Hardened the ASN.1 parser in debug mode, especially the printing
1334 of malformed distinguished names.
1336 - The size of an RSA public key received in a certificate is now restricted to
1338 512 bits <= modulus length <= 8192 bits.
1340 - Fixed the debug mode enumeration.
1346 - Fixed another PKCS#7 vulnerability which could lead to an
1347 endless loop while following the X.509 trust chain.
1353 - Fixed the PKCS#7 vulnerability discovered by Thomas Walpuski
1354 that accepted end certificates having identical issuer and subject
1355 distinguished names in a multi-tier X.509 trust chain.
1361 - Removed all remaining references to ipsec_netlink.h in KLIPS.
1367 - The new "ca" section allows to define the following parameters:
1370 cacert=koolCA.pem # cacert of kool CA
1371 ocspuri=http://ocsp.kool.net:8001 # ocsp server
1372 ldapserver=ldap.kool.net # default ldap server
1373 crluri=http://www.kool.net/kool.crl # crl distribution point
1374 crluri2="ldap:///O=Kool, C= .." # crl distribution point #2
1375 auto=add # add, ignore
1377 The ca definitions can be monitored via the command
1379 ipsec auto --listcainfos
1381 - Fixed cosmetic corruption of /proc filesystem by integrating
1382 D. Hugh Redelmeier's freeswan-2.06 kernel fixes.
1388 - Added support for the 818043 NAT-Traversal update of Microsoft's
1389 Windows 2000/XP IPsec client which sends an ID_FQDN during Quick Mode.
1391 - A symbolic link to libcrypto is now added in the kernel sources
1392 during kernel compilation
1394 - Fixed a couple of 64 bit issues (mostly casts to int).
1395 Thanks to Ken Bantoft who checked my sources on a 64 bit platform.
1397 - Replaced s[n]printf() statements in the kernel by ipsec_snprintf().
1398 Credits go to D. Hugh Redelmeier, Michael Richardson, and Sam Sgro
1399 of the FreeS/WAN team who solved this problem with the 2.4.25 kernel.
1405 - an empty ASN.1 SEQUENCE OF or SET OF object (e.g. a subjectAltName
1406 certificate extension which contains no generalName item) can cause
1407 a pluto crash. This bug has been fixed. Additionally the ASN.1 parser has
1408 been hardened to make it more robust against malformed ASN.1 objects.
1410 - applied Herbert Xu's NAT-T patches which fixes NAT-T under the native
1411 Linux 2.6 IPsec stack.
1417 - based on freeswan-2.04, x509-1.5.3, nat-0.6c, alg-0.8.1rc12