IPSEC_AUTO(8)

NAME
ipsec auto - control automatically-keyed IPsec connections

SYNOPSIS
ipsec auto [ --show ] [ --showonly ] [ --asynchronous ]
[ --config configfile ] [ --verbose ] [ --type conn ]
operation connection

ipsec auto [ --show ] [ --showonly ]
[ --config configfile ] [ --verbose ] --type ca
operation ca

ipsec auto [ --show ] [ --showonly ] operation

DESCRIPTION
Auto manipulates automatically-keyed strongSwan IPsec connections, setting them up and shutting them down based on the information in the IPsec configuration file. In the normal usage, connection is the name of a connection specification in the configuration file; ca is the name of a Certification Authority (CA) specification in the configuration file; operation is --add, --delete, --replace, --up, --down, --route, or --unroute. The --status and --statusall operations may take a connection name. The --ready, --rereadsecrets, --rereadgroups, --rereadcacerts, --rereadaacerts, --rereadocspcerts, --rereadacerts, --rereadcrls, --rereadall, --listalgs, --listpubkeys, --listcerts, --listcacerts, --listaacerts, --listocspcerts, --listacerts, --listgroups, --listcainfos, --listcrls, --listocsp, --listcards, --listall, and --purgeocsp operations do not take a connection name. Auto generates suitable commands and feeds them to a shell for execution.

The --add operation adds a connection or ca specification to the internal database within pluto; it will fail if pluto already has a specification by that name. The --delete operation deletes a connection or ca specification from pluto's internal database (also tearing down any connections based on it); it will fail if the specification does not exist. The --replace operation is equivalent to --delete (if there is already a specification by the given name) followed by --add, and is a convenience for updating pluto's internal specification to match an external one. (Note that a --rereadsecrets may also be needed.) The --rereadgroups operation causes any changes to the policy group files to take effect (this is currently a synonym for --ready, but that may change). None of the other operations alters the internal database.

The --up operation asks pluto to establish a connection based on an entry in its internal database. The --down operation tells pluto to tear down such a connection.

Normally, pluto establishes a route to the destination specified for a connection as part of the --up operation. However, the route and only the route can be established with the --route operation. Until and unless an actual connection is established, this discards any packets sent there, which may be preferable to having them sent elsewhere based on a more general route (e.g., a default route).

Normally, pluto's route to a destination remains in place when a --down operation is used to take the connection down (or if connection setup, or later automatic rekeying, fails). This permits establishing a new connection (perhaps using a different specification; the route is altered as necessary) without having a ``window'' in which packets might go elsewhere based on a more general route. Such a route can be removed using the --unroute operation (and is implicitly removed by --delete).

The --ready operation tells pluto to listen for connection-setup requests from other hosts. Doing an --up operation before doing --ready on both ends is futile and will not work, although this is now automated as part of IPsec startup and should not normally be an issue.

The --status operation asks pluto for current connection status either for all connections (no connection argument) or a for specified connection name. For more detailed information use --statusall . The output format is ad-hoc and likely to change.

The --rereadsecrets operation tells pluto to re-read the /etc/ipsec.secrets secret-keys file, which it normally reads only at startup time. (This is currently a synonym for --ready, but that may change.)

The --rereadcacerts operation reads all certificate files contained in the /etc/ipsec.d/cacerts directory and adds them to pluto's list of Certification Authority (CA) certificates.

The --rereadaacerts operation reads all certificate files contained in the /etc/ipsec.d/aacerts directory and adds them to pluto's list of Authorization Authority (AA) certificates.

The --rereadocspcerts operation reads all certificate files contained in the /etc/ipsec.d/ocspcerts directory and adds them to pluto's list of OCSP signer certificates.

The --rereadacerts operation reads all certificate files contained in the /etc/ipsec.d/acerts directory and adds them to pluto's list of attribute certificates.

The --rereadcrls operation reads all certificate revocation list (CRL) files contained in the /etc/ipsec.d/crls directory and adds them to pluto's list of CRLs.

The --rereadall operation is equivalent to the execution of --rereadsecrets, --rereadcacerts, --rereadaacerts, --rereadocspcerts, --rereadacerts, and --rereadcrls.

The --listalgs operation lists all registed IKE encryption and hash algorithms, that are available to pluto, as well as the Diffie-Hellman (DH) groups.

The --listpubkeys operation lists all RSA public keys either received from peers via the IKE protocol embedded in authenticated certificate payloads or loaded locally using the rightcert / leftcert or rightrsasigkey / leftrsasigkey parameters in ipsec.conf(5).

The --listcerts operation lists all X.509 and OpenPGP certificates loaded locally using the rightcert and leftcert parameters in ipsec.conf(5).

The --listcacerts operation lists all X.509 CA certificates either loaded locally from the /etc/ipsec.d/cacerts directory or received in PKCS#7-wrapped certificate payloads via the IKE protocol.

The --listaacerts operation lists all X.509 AA certificates loaded locally from the /etc/ipsec.d/aacerts directory.

The --listocspcerts operation lists all OCSP signer certificates either loaded locally from the /etc/ipsec.d/ocspcerts directory or received via the Online Certificate Status Protocol from an OCSP server.

The --listacerts operation lists all X.509 attribute certificates loaded locally from the /etc/ipsec.d/acerts directory.

The --listgropus operation lists all groups that are either used in connection definitions in ipsec.conf(5) or are embedded in loaded X.509 attributes certificates.

The --listcainfos operation lists the certification authority information specified in the ca sections of ipsec.conf(5).

The --listcrls operation lists all Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) either loaded locally from the /etc/ipsec.d/crls directory or fetched dynamically from an HTTP or LDAP server.

The --listocsp operation lists the certicates status information fetched from OCSP servers.

The --purgeocsp operation deletes any cached certificate status information and pending OCSP fetch requests.

The --listcards operation lists information about attached smartcards or crypto tokens.

The --listall operation is equivalent to the execution of --listalgs, --listpubkeys, --listcerts, --listcacerts, --listaacerts, --listocspcerts, --listacerts, --listgroups, --listcainfos, --listcrls, --listocsp, and --listcards.

The --show option turns on the -x option of the shell used to execute the commands, so each command is shown as it is executed.

The --showonly option causes auto to show the commands it would run, on standard output, and not run them.

The --asynchronous option, applicable only to the up operation, tells pluto to attempt to establish the connection, but does not delay to report results. This is especially useful to start multiple connections in parallel when network links are slow.

The --verbose option instructs auto to pass through all output from ipsec_whack(8), including log output that is normally filtered out as uninteresting.

The --config option specifies a non-standard location for the IPsec configuration file (default /etc/ipsec.conf).

See ipsec.conf(5) for details of the configuration file. Apart from the basic parameters which specify the endpoints and routing of a connection (left and right, plus possibly leftsubnet, leftnexthop, leftfirewall, their right equivalents, and perhaps type), an auto connection almost certainly needs a keyingtries parameter (since the keyingtries default is poorly chosen).

FILES
/etc/ipsec.conf    default IPSEC configuration file
/var/run/ipsec.info    %defaultroute information

SEE ALSO
ipsec.conf(5), ipsec(8), ipsec_pluto(8), ipsec_whack(8), ipsec_manual(8)

HISTORY
Written for the FreeS/WAN project <http://www.freeswan.org> by Henry Spencer. Extended for the strongSwan project <http://www.strongswan.org> by Andreas Steffen.

BUGS
Although an --up operation does connection setup on both ends, --down tears only one end of the connection down (although the orphaned end will eventually time out).

There is no support for passthrough connections.

A connection description which uses %defaultroute for one of its nexthop parameters but not the other may be falsely rejected as erroneous in some circumstances.

The exit status of --showonly does not always reflect errors discovered during processing of the request. (This is fine for human inspection, but not so good for use in scripts.)