4 - The "ipsec statusall" command now lists CA restrictions, EAP
5 authentication types and EAP identities.
7 - Fixed two multithreading deadlocks occurring when starting up
8 several hundred tunnels concurrently.
10 - Fixed the --enable-integrity-test configure option which
11 computes a SHA-1 checksum over the libstrongswan library.
17 - Consistent logging of IKE and CHILD SAs at the audit (AUD) level.
19 - Improved the performance of the SQL-based virtual IP address pool
20 by introducing an additional addresses table. The leases table
21 storing only history information has become optional and can be
22 disabled by setting charon.plugins.sql.lease_history = no in
25 - The XFRM_STATE_AF_UNSPEC flag added to xfrm.h allows IPv4-over-IPv6
26 and IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnels with the 2.6.26 and later Linux kernels.
28 - management of different virtual IP pools for different
29 network interfaces have become possible.
31 - fixed a bug which prevented the assignment of more than 256
32 virtual IP addresses from a pool managed by an sql database.
34 - fixed a bug which did not delete own IPCOMP SAs in the kernel.
40 - Added statistics functions to ipsec pool --status and ipsec pool --leases
41 and input validation checks to various ipsec pool commands.
43 - ipsec statusall now lists all loaded charon plugins and displays
44 the negotiated IKEv2 cipher suite proposals.
46 - The openssl plugin supports the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman groups
47 19, 20, 21, 25, and 26.
49 - The openssl plugin supports ECDSA authentication using elliptic curve
52 - Fixed a bug in stroke which caused multiple charon threads to close
53 the file descriptors during packet transfers over the stroke socket.
55 - ESP sequence numbers are now migrated in IPsec SA updates handled by
56 MOBIKE. Works only with Linux kernels >= 2.6.17.
62 - Fixed the strongswan.conf path configuration problem that occurred when
63 --sysconfig was not set explicitly in ./configure.
65 - Fixed a number of minor bugs that where discovered during the 4th
66 IKEv2 interoperability workshop in San Antonio, TX.
72 - Plugins for libstrongswan and charon can optionally be loaded according
73 to a configuration in strongswan.conf. Most components provide a
74 "load = " option followed by a space separated list of plugins to load.
75 This allows e.g. the fallback from a hardware crypto accelerator to
76 to software-based crypto plugins.
78 - Charons SQL plugin has been extended by a virtual IP address pool.
79 Configurations with a rightsourceip=%poolname setting query a SQLite or
80 MySQL database for leases. The "ipsec pool" command helps in administrating
81 the pool database. See ipsec pool --help for the available options
83 - The Authenticated Encryption Algorithms AES-CCM-8/12/16 and AES-GCM-8/12/16
84 for ESP are now supported starting with the Linux 2.6.25 kernel. The
85 syntax is e.g. esp=aes128ccm12 or esp=aes256gcm16.
91 - Support for "Hash and URL" encoded certificate payloads has been implemented
92 in the IKEv2 daemon charon. Using the "certuribase" option of a CA section
93 allows to assign a base URL to all certificates issued by the specified CA.
94 The final URL is then built by concatenating that base and the hex encoded
95 SHA1 hash of the DER encoded certificate. Note that this feature is disabled
96 by default and must be enabled using the option "charon.hash_and_url".
98 - The IKEv2 daemon charon now supports the "uniqueids" option to close multiple
99 IKE_SAs with the same peer. The option value "keep" prefers existing
100 connection setups over new ones, where the value "replace" replaces existing
103 - The crypto factory in libstrongswan additionaly supports random number
104 generators, plugins may provide other sources of randomness. The default
105 plugin reads raw random data from /dev/(u)random.
107 - Extended the credential framework by a caching option to allow plugins
108 persistent caching of fetched credentials. The "cachecrl" option has been
111 - The new trustchain verification introduced in 4.2.0 has been parallelized.
112 Threads fetching CRL or OCSP information no longer block other threads.
114 - A new IKEv2 configuration attribute framework has been introduced allowing
115 plugins to provide virtual IP addresses, and in the future, other
116 configuration attribute services (e.g. DNS/WINS servers).
118 - The stroke plugin has been extended to provide virtual IP addresses from
119 a pool defined in ipsec.conf. The "rightsourceip" parameter now accepts
120 address pools in CIDR notation (e.g. 10.1.1.0/24). The parameter also accepts
121 the value "%poolname", where "poolname" identifies a pool provided by a
124 - Fixed compilation on uClibc and a couple of other minor bugs.
126 - Set DPD defaults in ipsec starter to dpd_delay=30s and dpd_timeout=150s.
128 - The IKEv1 pluto daemon now supports the ESP encryption algorithm CAMELLIA
129 with key lengths of 128, 192, and 256 bits, as well as the authentication
130 algorithm AES_XCBC_MAC. Configuration example: esp=camellia192-aesxcbc.
136 - libstrongswan has been modularized to attach crypto algorithms,
137 credential implementations (keys, certificates) and fetchers dynamically
138 through plugins. Existing code has been ported to plugins:
139 - RSA/Diffie-Hellman implementation using the GNU Multi Precision library
140 - X509 certificate system supporting CRLs, OCSP and attribute certificates
141 - Multiple plugins providing crypto algorithms in software
142 - CURL and OpenLDAP fetcher
144 - libstrongswan gained a relational database API which uses pluggable database
145 providers. Plugins for MySQL and SQLite are available.
147 - The IKEv2 keying daemon charon is more extensible. Generic plugins may provide
148 connection configuration, credentials and EAP methods or control the daemon.
149 Existing code has been ported to plugins:
150 - EAP-AKA, EAP-SIM, EAP-MD5 and EAP-Identity
151 - stroke configuration, credential and control (compatible to pluto)
152 - XML bases management protocol to control and query the daemon
153 The following new plugins are available:
154 - An experimental SQL configuration, credential and logging plugin on
155 top of either MySQL or SQLite
156 - A unit testing plugin to run tests at daemon startup
158 - The authentication and credential framework in charon has been heavily
159 refactored to support modular credential providers, proper
160 CERTREQ/CERT payload exchanges and extensible authorization rules.
162 - The framework of strongSwan Manager has envolved to the web application
163 framework libfast (FastCGI Application Server w/ Templates) and is usable
164 by other applications.
170 - IKE rekeying in NAT situations did not inherit the NAT conditions
171 to the rekeyed IKE_SA so that the UDP encapsulation was lost with
172 the next CHILD_SA rekeying.
174 - Wrong type definition of the next_payload variable in id_payload.c
175 caused an INVALID_SYNTAX error on PowerPC platforms.
177 - Implemented IKEv2 EAP-SIM server and client test modules that use
178 triplets stored in a file. For details on the configuration see
179 the scenario 'ikev2/rw-eap-sim-rsa'.
185 - Fixed error in the ordering of the certinfo_t records in the ocsp cache that
186 caused multiple entries of the same serial number to be created.
188 - Implementation of a simple EAP-MD5 module which provides CHAP
189 authentication. This may be interesting in conjunction with certificate
190 based server authentication, as weak passwords can't be brute forced
191 (in contradiction to traditional IKEv2 PSK).
193 - A complete software based implementation of EAP-AKA, using algorithms
194 specified in 3GPP2 (S.S0055). This implementation does not use an USIM,
195 but reads the secrets from ipsec.secrets. Make sure to read eap_aka.h
198 - Support for vendor specific EAP methods using Expanded EAP types. The
199 interface to EAP modules has been slightly changed, so make sure to
200 check the changes if you're already rolling your own modules.
206 - The default _updown script now dynamically inserts and removes ip6tables
207 firewall rules if leftfirewall=yes is set in IPv6 connections. New IPv6
208 net-net and roadwarrior (PSK/RSA) scenarios for both IKEv1 and IKEV2 were
211 - Implemented RFC4478 repeated authentication to force EAP/Virtual-IP clients
212 to reestablish an IKE_SA within a given timeframe.
214 - strongSwan Manager supports configuration listing, initiation and termination
215 of IKE and CHILD_SAs.
217 - Fixes and improvements to multithreading code.
219 - IKEv2 plugins have been renamed to libcharon-* to avoid naming conflicts.
220 Make sure to remove the old plugins in $libexecdir/ipsec, otherwise they get
227 - Removed recursive pthread mutexes since uClibc doesn't support them.
233 - In NAT traversal situations and multiple queued Quick Modes,
234 those pending connections inserted by auto=start after the
235 port floating from 500 to 4500 were erronously deleted.
237 - Added a "forceencaps" connection parameter to enforce UDP encapsulation
238 to surmount restrictive firewalls. NAT detection payloads are faked to
239 simulate a NAT situation and trick the other peer into NAT mode (IKEv2 only).
241 - Preview of strongSwan Manager, a web based configuration and monitoring
242 application. It uses a new XML control interface to query the IKEv2 daemon
243 (see http://trac.strongswan.org/wiki/Manager).
245 - Experimental SQLite configuration backend which will provide the configuration
246 interface for strongSwan Manager in future releases.
248 - Further improvements to MOBIKE support.
254 - Since some third party IKEv2 implementations run into
255 problems with strongSwan announcing MOBIKE capability per
256 default, MOBIKE can be disabled on a per-connection-basis
257 using the mobike=no option. Whereas mobike=no disables the
258 sending of the MOBIKE_SUPPORTED notification and the floating
259 to UDP port 4500 with the IKE_AUTH request even if no NAT
260 situation has been detected, strongSwan will still support
261 MOBIKE acting as a responder.
263 - the default ipsec routing table plus its corresponding priority
264 used for inserting source routes has been changed from 100 to 220.
265 It can be configured using the --with-ipsec-routing-table and
266 --with-ipsec-routing-table-prio options.
268 - the --enable-integrity-test configure option tests the
269 integrity of the libstrongswan crypto code during the charon
272 - the --disable-xauth-vid configure option disables the sending
273 of the XAUTH vendor ID. This can be used as a workaround when
274 interoperating with some Windows VPN clients that get into
275 trouble upon reception of an XAUTH VID without eXtended
276 AUTHentication having been configured.
278 - ipsec stroke now supports the rereadsecrets, rereadaacerts,
279 rereadacerts, and listacerts options.
285 - If a DNS lookup failure occurs when resolving right=%<FQDN>
286 or right=<FQDN> combined with rightallowany=yes then the
287 connection is not updated by ipsec starter thus preventing
288 the disruption of an active IPsec connection. Only if the DNS
289 lookup successfully returns with a changed IP address the
290 corresponding connection definition is updated.
292 - Routes installed by the keying daemons are now in a separate
293 routing table with the ID 100 to avoid conflicts with the main
294 table. Route lookup for IKEv2 traffic is done in userspace to ignore
295 routes installed for IPsec, as IKE traffic shouldn't get encapsulated.
301 - The pluto IKEv1 daemon now exhibits the same behaviour as its
302 IKEv2 companion charon by inserting an explicit route via the
303 _updown script only if a sourceip exists. This is admissible
304 since routing through the IPsec tunnel is handled automatically
305 by NETKEY's IPsec policies. As a consequence the left|rightnexthop
306 parameter is not required any more.
308 - The new IKEv1 parameter right|leftallowany parameters helps to handle
309 the case where both peers possess dynamic IP addresses that are
310 usually resolved using DynDNS or a similar service. The configuration
315 can be used by the initiator to start up a connection to a peer
316 by resolving peer.foo.bar into the currently allocated IP address.
317 Thanks to the rightallowany flag the connection behaves later on
322 so that the peer can rekey the connection as an initiator when his
323 IP address changes. An alternative notation is
327 which will implicitly set rightallowany=yes.
329 - ipsec starter now fails more gracefully in the presence of parsing
330 errors. Flawed ca and conn section are discarded and pluto is started
331 if non-fatal errors only were encountered. If right=%peer.foo.bar
332 cannot be resolved by DNS then right=%any will be used so that passive
333 connections as a responder are still possible.
335 - The new pkcs11initargs parameter that can be placed in the
336 setup config section of /etc/ipsec.conf allows the definition
337 of an argument string that is used with the PKCS#11 C_Initialize()
338 function. This non-standard feature is required by the NSS softoken
339 library. This patch was contributed by Robert Varga.
341 - Fixed a bug in ipsec starter introduced by strongswan-2.8.5
342 which caused a segmentation fault in the presence of unknown
343 or misspelt keywords in ipsec.conf. This bug fix was contributed
346 - Partial support for MOBIKE in IKEv2. The initiator acts on interface/
347 address configuration changes and updates IKE and IPsec SAs dynamically.
353 - IKEv2 peer configuration selection now can be based on a given
354 certification authority using the rightca= statement.
356 - IKEv2 authentication based on RSA signatures now can handle multiple
357 certificates issued for a given peer ID. This allows a smooth transition
358 in the case of a peer certificate renewal.
360 - IKEv2: Support for requesting a specific virtual IP using leftsourceip on the
361 client and returning requested virtual IPs using rightsourceip=%config
362 on the server. If the server does not support configuration payloads, the
363 client enforces its leftsourceip parameter.
365 - The ./configure options --with-uid/--with-gid allow pluto and charon
366 to drop their privileges to a minimum and change to an other UID/GID. This
367 improves the systems security, as a possible intruder may only get the
368 CAP_NET_ADMIN capability.
370 - Further modularization of charon: Pluggable control interface and
371 configuration backend modules provide extensibility. The control interface
372 for stroke is included, and further interfaces using DBUS (NetworkManager)
373 or XML are on the way. A backend for storing configurations in the daemon
374 is provided and more advanced backends (using e.g. a database) are trivial
377 - Fixed a compilation failure in libfreeswan occuring with Linux kernel
384 - Support for an additional Diffie-Hellman exchange when creating/rekeying
385 a CHILD_SA in IKEv2 (PFS). PFS is enabled when the proposal contains a
386 DH group (e.g. "esp=aes128-sha1-modp1536"). Further, DH group negotiation
387 is implemented properly for rekeying.
389 - Support for the AES-XCBC-96 MAC algorithm for IPsec SAs when using IKEv2
390 (requires linux >= 2.6.20). It is enabled using e.g. "esp=aes256-aesxcbc".
392 - Working IPv4-in-IPv6 and IPv6-in-IPv4 tunnels for linux >= 2.6.21.
394 - Added support for EAP modules which do not establish an MSK.
396 - Removed the dependencies from the /usr/include/linux/ headers by
397 including xfrm.h, ipsec.h, and pfkeyv2.h in the distribution.
399 - crlNumber is now listed by ipsec listcrls
401 - The xauth_modules.verify_secret() function now passes the
408 - Server side cookie support. If to may IKE_SAs are in CONNECTING state,
409 cookies are enabled and protect against DoS attacks with faked source
410 addresses. Number of IKE_SAs in CONNECTING state is also limited per
411 peer address to avoid resource exhaustion. IKE_SA_INIT messages are
412 compared to properly detect retransmissions and incoming retransmits are
413 detected even if the IKE_SA is blocked (e.g. doing OCSP fetches).
415 - The IKEv2 daemon charon now supports dynamic http- and ldap-based CRL
416 fetching enabled by crlcheckinterval > 0 and caching fetched CRLs
417 enabled by cachecrls=yes.
419 - Added the configuration options --enable-nat-transport which enables
420 the potentially insecure NAT traversal for IPsec transport mode and
421 --disable-vendor-id which disables the sending of the strongSwan
424 - Fixed a long-standing bug in the pluto IKEv1 daemon which caused
425 a segmentation fault if a malformed payload was detected in the
426 IKE MR2 message and pluto tried to send an encrypted notification
429 - Added the NATT_IETF_02_N Vendor ID in order to support IKEv1 connections
430 with Windows 2003 Server which uses a wrong VID hash.
436 - Support of SHA2_384 hash function for protecting IKEv1
437 negotiations and support of SHA2 signatures in X.509 certificates.
439 - Fixed a serious bug in the computation of the SHA2-512 HMAC
440 function. Introduced automatic self-test of all IKEv1 hash
441 and hmac functions during pluto startup. Failure of a self-test
442 currently issues a warning only but does not exit pluto [yet].
444 - Support for SHA2-256/384/512 PRF and HMAC functions in IKEv2.
446 - Full support of CA information sections. ipsec listcainfos
447 now shows all collected crlDistributionPoints and OCSP
450 - Support of the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) for IKEv2.
451 This feature requires the HTTP fetching capabilities of the libcurl
452 library which must be enabled by setting the --enable-http configure
455 - Refactored core of the IKEv2 message processing code, allowing better
456 code reuse and separation.
458 - Virtual IP support in IKEv2 using INTERNAL_IP4/6_ADDRESS configuration
459 payload. Additionally, the INTERNAL_IP4/6_DNS attribute is interpreted
460 by the requestor and installed in a resolv.conf file.
462 - The IKEv2 daemon charon installs a route for each IPsec policy to use
463 the correct source address even if an application does not explicitly
466 - Integrated the EAP framework into charon which loads pluggable EAP library
467 modules. The ipsec.conf parameter authby=eap initiates EAP authentication
468 on the client side, while the "eap" parameter on the server side defines
469 the EAP method to use for client authentication.
470 A generic client side EAP-Identity module and an EAP-SIM authentication
471 module using a third party card reader implementation are included.
473 - Added client side support for cookies.
475 - Integrated the fixes done at the IKEv2 interoperability bakeoff, including
476 strict payload order, correct INVALID_KE_PAYLOAD rejection and other minor
477 fixes to enhance interoperability with other implementations.
483 - strongSwan now interoperates with the NCP Secure Entry Client,
484 the Shrew Soft VPN Client, and the Cisco VPN client, doing both
485 XAUTH and Mode Config.
487 - UNITY attributes are now recognized and UNITY_BANNER is set
494 - IKEv1: Support for extended authentication (XAUTH) in combination
495 with ISAKMP Main Mode RSA or PSK authentication. Both client and
496 server side were implemented. Handling of user credentials can
497 be done by a run-time loadable XAUTH module. By default user
498 credentials are stored in ipsec.secrets.
500 - IKEv2: Support for reauthentication when rekeying
502 - IKEv2: Support for transport mode
504 - fixed a lot of bugs related to byte order
506 - various other bugfixes
512 - IKEv1: Implementation of ModeConfig push mode via the new connection
513 keyword modeconfig=push allows interoperability with Cisco VPN gateways.
515 - IKEv1: The command ipsec statusall now shows "DPD active" for all
516 ISAKMP SAs that are under active Dead Peer Detection control.
518 - IKEv2: Charon's logging and debugging framework has been completely rewritten.
519 Instead of logger, special printf() functions are used to directly
520 print objects like hosts (%H) identifications (%D), certificates (%Q),
521 etc. The number of debugging levels have been reduced to:
523 0 (audit), 1 (control), 2 (controlmore), 3 (raw), 4 (private)
525 The debugging levels can either be specified statically in ipsec.conf as
528 charondebug="lib 1, cfg 3, net 2"
530 or changed at runtime via stroke as
532 ipsec stroke loglevel cfg 2
538 - Implemented full support for IPv6-in-IPv6 tunnels.
540 - Added configuration options for dead peer detection in IKEv2. dpd_action
541 types "clear", "hold" and "restart" are supported. The dpd_timeout
542 value is not used, as the normal retransmission policy applies to
543 detect dead peers. The dpd_delay parameter enables sending of empty
544 informational message to detect dead peers in case of inactivity.
546 - Added support for preshared keys in IKEv2. PSK keys configured in
547 ipsec.secrets are loaded. The authby parameter specifies the authentication
548 method to authentificate ourself, the other peer may use PSK or RSA.
550 - Changed retransmission policy to respect the keyingtries parameter.
552 - Added private key decryption. PEM keys encrypted with AES-128/192/256
553 or 3DES are supported.
555 - Implemented DES/3DES algorithms in libstrongswan. 3DES can be used to
558 - Implemented SHA-256/384/512 in libstrongswan, allows usage of certificates
559 signed with such a hash algorithm.
561 - Added initial support for updown scripts. The actions up-host/client and
562 down-host/client are executed. The leftfirewall=yes parameter
563 uses the default updown script to insert dynamic firewall rules, a custom
564 updown script may be specified with the leftupdown parameter.
570 - Added support for the auto=route ipsec.conf parameter and the
571 ipsec route/unroute commands for IKEv2. This allows to set up IKE_SAs and
572 CHILD_SAs dynamically on demand when traffic is detected by the
575 - Added support for rekeying IKE_SAs in IKEv2 using the ikelifetime parameter.
576 As specified in IKEv2, no reauthentication is done (unlike in IKEv1), only
577 new keys are generated using perfect forward secrecy. An optional flag
578 which enforces reauthentication will be implemented later.
580 - "sha" and "sha1" are now treated as synonyms in the ike= and esp=
581 algorithm configuration statements.
587 - Full X.509 certificate trust chain verification has been implemented.
588 End entity certificates can be exchanged via CERT payloads. The current
589 default is leftsendcert=always, since CERTREQ payloads are not supported
590 yet. Optional CRLs must be imported locally into /etc/ipsec.d/crls.
592 - Added support for leftprotoport/rightprotoport parameters in IKEv2. IKEv2
593 would offer more possibilities for traffic selection, but the Linux kernel
594 currently does not support it. That's why we stick with these simple
595 ipsec.conf rules for now.
597 - Added Dead Peer Detection (DPD) which checks liveliness of remote peer if no
598 IKE or ESP traffic is received. DPD is currently hardcoded (dpdaction=clear,
601 - Initial NAT traversal support in IKEv2. Charon includes NAT detection
602 notify payloads to detect NAT routers between the peers. It switches
603 to port 4500, uses UDP encapsulated ESP packets, handles peer address
604 changes gracefully and sends keep alive message periodically.
606 - Reimplemented IKE_SA state machine for charon, which allows simultaneous
607 rekeying, more shared code, cleaner design, proper retransmission
608 and a more extensible code base.
610 - The mixed PSK/RSA roadwarrior detection capability introduced by the
611 strongswan-2.7.0 release necessitated the pre-parsing of the IKE proposal
612 payloads by the responder right before any defined IKE Main Mode state had
613 been established. Although any form of bad proposal syntax was being correctly
614 detected by the payload parser, the subsequent error handler didn't check
615 the state pointer before logging current state information, causing an
616 immediate crash of the pluto keying daemon due to a NULL pointer.
622 - Added algorithm selection to charon: New default algorithms for
623 ike=aes128-sha-modp2048, as both daemons support it. The default
624 for IPsec SAs is now esp=aes128-sha,3des-md5. charon handles
625 the ike/esp parameter the same way as pluto. As this syntax does
626 not allow specification of a pseudo random function, the same
627 algorithm as for integrity is used (currently sha/md5). Supported
629 Encryption: aes128, aes192, aes256
630 Integrity/PRF: md5, sha (using hmac)
631 DH-Groups: modp768, 1024, 1536, 2048, 4096, 8192
633 Encryption: aes128, aes192, aes256, 3des, blowfish128,
634 blowfish192, blowfish256
636 More IKE encryption algorithms will come after porting libcrypto into
639 - initial support for rekeying CHILD_SAs using IKEv2. Currently no
640 perfect forward secrecy is used. The rekeying parameters rekey,
641 rekeymargin, rekeyfuzz and keylife from ipsec.conf are now supported
642 when using IKEv2. WARNING: charon currently is unable to handle
643 simultaneous rekeying. To avoid such a situation, use a large
644 rekeyfuzz, or even better, set rekey=no on one peer.
646 - support for host2host, net2net, host2net (roadwarrior) tunnels
647 using predefined RSA certificates (see uml scenarios for
648 configuration examples).
650 - new build environment featuring autotools. Features such
651 as HTTP, LDAP and smartcard support may be enabled using
652 the ./configure script. Changing install directories
653 is possible, too. See ./configure --help for more details.
655 - better integration of charon with ipsec starter, which allows
656 (almost) transparent operation with both daemons. charon
657 handles ipsec commands up, down, status, statusall, listall,
658 listcerts and allows proper load, reload and delete of connections
665 - initial support of the IKEv2 protocol. Connections in
666 ipsec.conf designated by keyexchange=ikev2 are negotiated
667 by the new IKEv2 charon keying daemon whereas those marked
668 by keyexchange=ikev1 or the default keyexchange=ike are
669 handled thy the IKEv1 pluto keying daemon. Currently only
670 a limited subset of functions are available with IKEv2
671 (Default AES encryption, authentication based on locally
672 imported X.509 certificates, unencrypted private RSA keys
673 in PKCS#1 file format, limited functionality of the ipsec
680 - the dynamic iptables rules from the _updown_x509 template
681 for KLIPS and the _updown_policy template for NETKEY have
682 been merged into the default _updown script. The existing
683 left|rightfirewall keyword causes the automatic insertion
684 and deletion of ACCEPT rules for tunneled traffic upon
685 the successful setup and teardown of an IPsec SA, respectively.
686 left|rightfirwall can be used with KLIPS under any Linux 2.4
687 kernel or with NETKEY under a Linux kernel version >= 2.6.16
688 in conjuction with iptables >= 1.3.5. For NETKEY under a Linux
689 kernel version < 2.6.16 which does not support IPsec policy
690 matching yet, please continue to use a copy of the _updown_espmark
691 template loaded via the left|rightupdown keyword.
693 - a new left|righthostaccess keyword has been introduced which
694 can be used in conjunction with left|rightfirewall and the
695 default _updown script. By default leftfirewall=yes inserts
696 a bi-directional iptables FORWARD rule for a local client network
697 with a netmask different from 255.255.255.255 (single host).
698 This does not allow to access the VPN gateway host via its
699 internal network interface which is part of the client subnet
700 because an iptables INPUT and OUTPUT rule would be required.
701 lefthostaccess=yes will cause this additional ACCEPT rules to
704 - mixed PSK|RSA roadwarriors are now supported. The ISAKMP proposal
705 payload is preparsed in order to find out whether the roadwarrior
706 requests PSK or RSA so that a matching connection candidate can
713 - the new _updown_policy template allows ipsec policy based
714 iptables firewall rules. Required are iptables version
715 >= 1.3.5 and linux kernel >= 2.6.16. This script obsoletes
716 the _updown_espmark template, so that no INPUT mangle rules
717 are required any more.
719 - added support of DPD restart mode
721 - ipsec starter now allows the use of wildcards in include
722 statements as e.g. in "include /etc/my_ipsec/*.conf".
723 Patch courtesy of Matthias Haas.
725 - the Netscape OID 'employeeNumber' is now recognized and can be
726 used as a Relative Distinguished Name in certificates.
732 - /etc/init.d/ipsec or /etc/rc.d/ipsec is now a copy of the ipsec
733 command and not of ipsec setup any more.
735 - ipsec starter now supports AH authentication in conjunction with
736 ESP encryption. AH authentication is configured in ipsec.conf
737 via the auth=ah parameter.
739 - The command ipsec scencrypt|scdecrypt <args> is now an alias for
740 ipsec whack --scencrypt|scdecrypt <args>.
742 - get_sa_info() now determines for the native netkey IPsec stack
743 the exact time of the last use of an active eroute. This information
744 is used by the Dead Peer Detection algorithm and is also displayed by
745 the ipsec status command.
751 - running under the native Linux 2.6 IPsec stack, the function
752 get_sa_info() is called by ipsec auto --status to display the current
753 number of transmitted bytes per IPsec SA.
755 - get_sa_info() is also used by the Dead Peer Detection process to detect
756 recent ESP activity. If ESP traffic was received from the peer within
757 the last dpd_delay interval then no R_Y_THERE notification must be sent.
759 - strongSwan now supports the Relative Distinguished Name "unstructuredName"
760 in ID_DER_ASN1_DN identities. The following notations are possible:
762 rightid="unstructuredName=John Doe"
763 rightid="UN=John Doe"
765 - fixed a long-standing bug which caused PSK-based roadwarrior connections
766 to segfault in the function id.c:same_id() called by keys.c:get_secret()
767 if an FQDN, USER_FQDN, or Key ID was defined, as in the following example.
774 - the ipsec command now supports most ipsec auto commands (e.g. ipsec listall).
776 - ipsec starter didn't set host_addr and client.addr ports in whack msg.
778 - in order to guarantee backwards-compatibility with the script-based
779 auto function (e.g. auto --replace), the ipsec starter scripts stores
780 the defaultroute information in the temporary file /var/run/ipsec.info.
782 - The compile-time option USE_XAUTH_VID enables the sending of the XAUTH
783 Vendor ID which is expected by Cisco PIX 7 boxes that act as IKE Mode Config
786 - the ipsec starter now also recognizes the parameters authby=never and
787 type=passthrough|pass|drop|reject.
793 - ipsec starter now supports the also parameter which allows
794 a modular structure of the connection definitions. Thus
795 "ipsec start" is now ready to replace "ipsec setup".
801 - Mathieu Lafon's popular ipsec starter tool has been added to the
802 strongSwan distribution. Many thanks go to Stephan Scholz from astaro
803 for his integration work. ipsec starter is a C program which is going
804 to replace the various shell and awk starter scripts (setup, _plutoload,
805 _plutostart, _realsetup, _startklips, _confread, and auto). Since
806 ipsec.conf is now parsed only once, the starting of multiple tunnels is
807 accelerated tremedously.
809 - Added support of %defaultroute to the ipsec starter. If the IP address
810 changes, a HUP signal to the ipsec starter will automatically
811 reload pluto's connections.
813 - moved most compile time configurations from pluto/Makefile to
814 Makefile.inc by defining the options USE_LIBCURL, USE_LDAP,
815 USE_SMARTCARD, and USE_NAT_TRAVERSAL_TRANSPORT_MODE.
817 - removed the ipsec verify and ipsec newhostkey commands
819 - fixed some 64-bit issues in formatted print statements
821 - The scepclient functionality implementing the Simple Certificate
822 Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) is nearly complete but hasn't been
829 - CA certicates are now automatically loaded from a smartcard
830 or USB crypto token and appear in the ipsec auto --listcacerts
837 - when using "ipsec whack --scencrypt <data>" with a PKCS#11
838 library that does not support the C_Encrypt() Cryptoki
839 function (e.g. OpenSC), the RSA encryption is done in
840 software using the public key fetched from the smartcard.
842 - The scepclient function now allows to define the
843 validity of a self-signed certificate using the --days,
844 --startdate, and --enddate options. The default validity
845 has been changed from one year to five years.
851 - the config setup parameter pkcs11proxy=yes opens pluto's PKCS#11
852 interface to other applications for RSA encryption and decryption
853 via the whack interface. Notation:
855 ipsec whack --scencrypt <data>
856 [--inbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
857 [--outbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
860 ipsec whack --scdecrypt <data>
861 [--inbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
862 [--outbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
865 The default setting for inbase and outbase is hex.
867 The new proxy interface can be used for securing symmetric
868 encryption keys required by the cryptoloop or dm-crypt
869 disk encryption schemes, especially in the case when
870 pkcs11keepstate=yes causes pluto to lock the pkcs11 slot
873 - if the file /etc/ipsec.secrets is lacking during the startup of
874 pluto then the root-readable file /etc/ipsec.d/private/myKey.der
875 containing a 2048 bit RSA private key and a matching self-signed
876 certificate stored in the file /etc/ipsec.d/certs/selfCert.der
877 is automatically generated by calling the function
879 ipsec scepclient --out pkcs1 --out cert-self
881 scepclient was written by Jan Hutter and Martin Willi, students
882 at the University of Applied Sciences in Rapperswil, Switzerland.
888 - the current extension of the PKCS#7 framework introduced
889 a parsing error in PKCS#7 wrapped X.509 certificates that are
890 e.g. transmitted by Windows XP when multi-level CAs are used.
891 the parsing syntax has been fixed.
893 - added a patch by Gerald Richter which tolerates multiple occurrences
894 of the ipsec0 interface when using KLIPS.
900 - with gawk-3.1.4 the word "default2 has become a protected
901 keyword for use in switch statements and cannot be used any
902 more in the strongSwan scripts. This problem has been
903 solved by renaming "default" to "defaults" and "setdefault"
904 in the scripts _confread and auto, respectively.
906 - introduced the parameter leftsendcert with the values
908 always|yes (the default, always send a cert)
909 ifasked (send the cert only upon a cert request)
910 never|no (never send a cert, used for raw RSA keys and
913 - fixed the initialization of the ESP key length to a default of
914 128 bits in the case that the peer does not send a key length
915 attribute for AES encryption.
917 - applied Herbert Xu's uniqueIDs patch
919 - applied Herbert Xu's CLOEXEC patches
925 - CRLs can now be cached also in the case when the issuer's
926 certificate does not contain a subjectKeyIdentifier field.
927 In that case the subjectKeyIdentifier is computed by pluto as the
928 160 bit SHA-1 hash of the issuer's public key in compliance
929 with section 4.2.1.2 of RFC 3280.
931 - Fixed a bug introduced by strongswan-2.5.1 which eliminated
932 not only multiple Quick Modes of a given connection but also
933 multiple connections between two security gateways.
939 - Under the native IPsec of the Linux 2.6 kernel, a %trap eroute
940 installed either by setting auto=route in ipsec.conf or by
941 a connection put into hold, generates an XFRM_AQUIRE event
942 for each packet that wants to use the not-yet exisiting
943 tunnel. Up to now each XFRM_AQUIRE event led to an entry in
944 the Quick Mode queue, causing multiple IPsec SA to be
945 established in rapid succession. Starting with strongswan-2.5.1
946 only a single IPsec SA is established per host-pair connection.
948 - Right after loading the PKCS#11 module, all smartcard slots are
949 searched for certificates. The result can be viewed using
952 ipsec auto --listcards
954 The certificate objects found in the slots are numbered
955 starting with #1, #2, etc. This position number can be used to address
956 certificates (leftcert=%smartcard) and keys (: PIN %smartcard)
957 in ipsec.conf and ipsec.secrets, respectively:
959 %smartcard (selects object #1)
960 %smartcard#1 (selects object #1)
961 %smartcard#3 (selects object #3)
963 As an alternative the existing retrieval scheme can be used:
965 %smartcard:45 (selects object with id=45)
966 %smartcard0 (selects first object in slot 0)
967 %smartcard4:45 (selects object in slot 4 with id=45)
969 - Depending on the settings of CKA_SIGN and CKA_DECRYPT
970 private key flags either C_Sign() or C_Decrypt() is used
971 to generate a signature.
973 - The output buffer length parameter siglen in C_Sign()
974 is now initialized to the actual size of the output
975 buffer prior to the function call. This fixes the
976 CKR_BUFFER_TOO_SMALL error that could occur when using
977 the OpenSC PKCS#11 module.
979 - Changed the initialization of the PKCS#11 CK_MECHANISM in
980 C_SignInit() to mech = { CKM_RSA_PKCS, NULL_PTR, 0 }.
982 - Refactored the RSA public/private key code and transferred it
983 from keys.c to the new pkcs1.c file as a preparatory step
984 towards the release of the SCEP client.
990 - The loading of a PKCS#11 smartcard library module during
991 runtime does not require OpenSC library functions any more
992 because the corresponding code has been integrated into
993 smartcard.c. Also the RSAREF pkcs11 header files have been
994 included in a newly created pluto/rsaref directory so that
995 no external include path has to be defined any longer.
997 - A long-awaited feature has been implemented at last:
998 The local caching of CRLs fetched via HTTP or LDAP, activated
999 by the parameter cachecrls=yes in the config setup section
1000 of ipsec.conf. The dynamically fetched CRLs are stored under
1001 a unique file name containing the issuer's subjectKeyID
1002 in /etc/ipsec.d/crls.
1004 - Applied a one-line patch courtesy of Michael Richardson
1005 from the Openswan project which fixes the kernel-oops
1006 in KLIPS when an snmp daemon is running on the same box.
1012 - Eliminated null length CRL distribution point strings.
1014 - Fixed a trust path evaluation bug introduced with 2.4.3
1020 - Improved the joint OCSP / CRL revocation policy.
1021 OCSP responses have precedence over CRL entries.
1023 - Introduced support of CRLv2 reason codes.
1025 - Fixed a bug with key-pad equipped readers which caused
1026 pluto to prompt for the pin via the console when the first
1027 occasion to enter the pin via the key-pad was missed.
1029 - When pluto is built with LDAP_V3 enabled, the library
1030 liblber required by newer versions of openldap is now
1037 - Added the _updown_espmark template which requires all
1038 incoming ESP traffic to be marked with a default mark
1041 - Introduced the pkcs11keepstate parameter in the config setup
1042 section of ipsec.conf. With pkcs11keepstate=yes the PKCS#11
1043 session and login states are kept as long as possible during
1044 the lifetime of pluto. This means that a PIN entry via a key
1045 pad has to be done only once.
1047 - Introduced the pkcs11module parameter in the config setup
1048 section of ipsec.conf which specifies the PKCS#11 module
1049 to be used with smart cards. Example:
1051 pkcs11module=/usr/lib/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.lo
1053 - Added support of smartcard readers equipped with a PIN pad.
1055 - Added patch by Jay Pfeifer which detects when netkey
1056 modules have been statically built into the Linux 2.6 kernel.
1058 - Added two patches by Herbert Xu. The first uses ip xfrm
1059 instead of setkey to flush the IPsec policy database. The
1060 second sets the optional flag in inbound IPComp SAs only.
1062 - Applied Ulrich Weber's patch which fixes an interoperability
1063 problem between native IPsec and KLIPS systems caused by
1064 setting the replay window to 32 instead of 0 for ipcomp.
1070 - Fixed a bug which caused an unwanted Mode Config request
1071 to be initiated in the case where "right" was used to denote
1072 the local side in ipsec.conf and "left" the remote side,
1073 contrary to the recommendation that "right" be remote and
1080 - updated Vendor ID to strongSwan-2.4.0
1082 - updated copyright statement to include David Buechi and
1089 - strongSwan now communicates with attached smartcards and
1090 USB crypto tokens via the standardized PKCS #11 interface.
1091 By default the OpenSC library from www.opensc.org is used
1092 but any other PKCS#11 library could be dynamically linked.
1093 strongSwan's PKCS#11 API was implemented by David Buechi
1094 and Michael Meier, both graduates of the Zurich University
1095 of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland.
1097 - When a %trap eroute is triggered by an outgoing IP packet
1098 then the native IPsec stack of the Linux 2.6 kernel [often/
1099 always?] returns an XFRM_ACQUIRE message with an undefined
1100 protocol family field and the connection setup fails.
1101 As a workaround IPv4 (AF_INET) is now assumed.
1103 - the results of the UML test scenarios are now enhanced
1104 with block diagrams of the virtual network topology used
1105 in a particular test.
1111 - fixed IV used to decrypt informational messages.
1112 This bug was introduced with Mode Config functionality.
1114 - fixed NCP Vendor ID.
1116 - undid one of Ulrich Weber's maximum udp size patches
1117 because it caused a segmentation fault with NAT-ed
1120 - added UML scenarios wildcards and attr-cert which
1121 demonstrate the implementation of IPsec policies based
1122 on wildcard parameters contained in Distinguished Names and
1123 on X.509 attribute certificates, respectively.
1129 - Added basic Mode Config functionality
1131 - Added Mathieu Lafon's patch which upgrades the status of
1132 the NAT-Traversal implementation to RFC 3947.
1134 - The _startklips script now also loads the xfrm4_tunnel
1137 - Added Ulrich Weber's netlink replay window size and
1138 maximum udp size patches.
1140 - UML testing now uses the Linux 2.6.10 UML kernel by default.
1146 - Eric Marchionni and Patrik Rayo, both recent graduates from
1147 the Zuercher Hochschule Winterthur in Switzerland, created a
1148 User-Mode-Linux test setup for strongSwan. For more details
1149 please read the INSTALL and README documents in the testing
1152 - Full support of group attributes based on X.509 attribute
1153 certificates. Attribute certificates can be generated
1154 using the openac facility. For more details see
1158 The group attributes can be used in connection definitions
1159 in order to give IPsec access to specific user groups.
1160 This is done with the new parameter left|rightgroups as in
1162 rightgroups="Research, Sales"
1164 giving access to users possessing the group attributes
1165 Research or Sales, only.
1167 - In Quick Mode clients with subnet mask /32 are now
1168 coded as IP_V4_ADDRESS or IP_V6_ADDRESS. This should
1169 fix rekeying problems with the SafeNet/SoftRemote and NCP
1170 Secure Entry Clients.
1172 - Changed the defaults of the ikelifetime and keylife parameters
1173 to 3h and 1h, respectively. The maximum allowable values are
1174 now both set to 24 h.
1176 - Suppressed notification wars between two IPsec peers that
1177 could e.g. be triggered by incorrect ISAKMP encryption.
1179 - Public RSA keys can now have identical IDs if either the
1180 issuing CA or the serial number is different. The serial
1181 number of a certificate is now shown by the command
1183 ipsec auto --listpubkeys
1189 - Added Tuomo Soini's sourceip feature which allows a strongSwan
1190 roadwarrior to use a fixed Virtual IP (see README section 2.6)
1191 and reduces the well-known four tunnel case on VPN gateways to
1192 a single tunnel definition (see README section 2.4).
1194 - Fixed a bug occuring with NAT-Traversal enabled when the responder
1195 suddenly turns initiator and the initiator cannot find a matching
1196 connection because of the floated IKE port 4500.
1198 - Removed misleading ipsec verify command from barf.
1200 - Running under the native IP stack, ipsec --version now shows
1201 the Linux kernel version (courtesy to the Openswan project).
1207 - Introduced the ipsec auto --listalgs monitoring command which lists
1208 all currently registered IKE and ESP algorithms.
1210 - Fixed a bug in the ESP algorithm selection occuring when the strict flag
1211 is set and the first proposed transform does not match.
1213 - Fixed another deadlock in the use of the lock_certs_and_keys() mutex,
1214 occuring when a smartcard is present.
1216 - Prevented that a superseded Phase1 state can trigger a DPD_TIMEOUT event.
1218 - Fixed the printing of the notification names (null)
1220 - Applied another of Herbert Xu's Netlink patches.
1226 - Support of Dead Peer Detection. The connection parameter
1228 dpdaction=clear|hold
1230 activates DPD for the given connection.
1232 - The default Opportunistic Encryption (OE) policy groups are not
1233 automatically included anymore. Those wishing to activate OE can include
1234 the policy group with the following statement in ipsec.conf:
1236 include /etc/ipsec.d/examples/oe.conf
1238 The default for [right|left]rsasigkey is now set to %cert.
1240 - strongSwan now has a Vendor ID of its own which can be activated
1241 using the compile option VENDORID
1243 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch which sets the compression algorithm correctly.
1245 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch fixing an ESPINUDP problem
1247 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch setting source/destination port numbers.
1249 - Reapplied one of Herbert Xu's NAT-Traversal patches which got
1250 lost during the migration from SuperFreeS/WAN.
1252 - Fixed a deadlock in the use of the lock_certs_and_keys() mutex.
1254 - Fixed the unsharing of alg parameters when instantiating group
1261 - Thomas Walpuski made me aware of a potential DoS attack via
1262 a PKCS#7-wrapped certificate bundle which could overwrite valid CA
1263 certificates in Pluto's authority certificate store. This vulnerability
1264 was fixed by establishing trust in CA candidate certificates up to a
1265 trusted root CA prior to insertion into Pluto's chained list.
1267 - replaced the --assign option by the -v option in the auto awk script
1268 in order to make it run with mawk under debian/woody.
1274 - Split of the status information between ipsec auto --status (concise)
1275 and ipsec auto --statusall (verbose). Both commands can be used with
1276 an optional connection selector:
1278 ipsec auto --status[all] <connection_name>
1280 - Added the description of X.509 related features to the ipsec_auto(8)
1283 - Hardened the ASN.1 parser in debug mode, especially the printing
1284 of malformed distinguished names.
1286 - The size of an RSA public key received in a certificate is now restricted to
1288 512 bits <= modulus length <= 8192 bits.
1290 - Fixed the debug mode enumeration.
1296 - Fixed another PKCS#7 vulnerability which could lead to an
1297 endless loop while following the X.509 trust chain.
1303 - Fixed the PKCS#7 vulnerability discovered by Thomas Walpuski
1304 that accepted end certificates having identical issuer and subject
1305 distinguished names in a multi-tier X.509 trust chain.
1311 - Removed all remaining references to ipsec_netlink.h in KLIPS.
1317 - The new "ca" section allows to define the following parameters:
1320 cacert=koolCA.pem # cacert of kool CA
1321 ocspuri=http://ocsp.kool.net:8001 # ocsp server
1322 ldapserver=ldap.kool.net # default ldap server
1323 crluri=http://www.kool.net/kool.crl # crl distribution point
1324 crluri2="ldap:///O=Kool, C= .." # crl distribution point #2
1325 auto=add # add, ignore
1327 The ca definitions can be monitored via the command
1329 ipsec auto --listcainfos
1331 - Fixed cosmetic corruption of /proc filesystem by integrating
1332 D. Hugh Redelmeier's freeswan-2.06 kernel fixes.
1338 - Added support for the 818043 NAT-Traversal update of Microsoft's
1339 Windows 2000/XP IPsec client which sends an ID_FQDN during Quick Mode.
1341 - A symbolic link to libcrypto is now added in the kernel sources
1342 during kernel compilation
1344 - Fixed a couple of 64 bit issues (mostly casts to int).
1345 Thanks to Ken Bantoft who checked my sources on a 64 bit platform.
1347 - Replaced s[n]printf() statements in the kernel by ipsec_snprintf().
1348 Credits go to D. Hugh Redelmeier, Michael Richardson, and Sam Sgro
1349 of the FreeS/WAN team who solved this problem with the 2.4.25 kernel.
1355 - an empty ASN.1 SEQUENCE OF or SET OF object (e.g. a subjectAltName
1356 certificate extension which contains no generalName item) can cause
1357 a pluto crash. This bug has been fixed. Additionally the ASN.1 parser has
1358 been hardened to make it more robust against malformed ASN.1 objects.
1360 - applied Herbert Xu's NAT-T patches which fixes NAT-T under the native
1361 Linux 2.6 IPsec stack.
1367 - based on freeswan-2.04, x509-1.5.3, nat-0.6c, alg-0.8.1rc12