Chapter 11. Tunnels

The purpose of integrity checking is to ensure that the packets of data when received are identical to when transmitted - i.e. their contents have not been tampered with en route.

There are a number of algorithms that can be used to implement integrity checking. They all use a key which is known only to the two ends of the communication. The key is typically a sequence of random-looking bytes, usually expressed in hex notation.

Integrity checking on its own does not stop someone snooping on the contents of the packets, it just makes sure that they are not tampered with on the way (as only someone with knowledge of the key could change the data without invalidating it).

The purpose of encryption is to change the data when it is sent so that nobody snooping on the packet can make sense of it. There are many different algorithms, offering different levels of security. Encryption similarly involves a key which is known only to the two ends of the communication.

IPsec provides two ways to encapsulate data - AH (Authentication Header) which integrity checks the packet data and also some of the header fields (IP addresses), and ESP (Encapsulation Security Payload) - which both encrypts and integrity checks the packet data.

Authentication is a mechanism for ensuring that the two end users of a communication channel trust that they are who they think they are. Neither encryption nor integrity checking alone can do this. To ensure that you are talking to the correct person and not someone else masquerading as them, and to be sure nobody else can read your communications, you need to be sure that keys used for integrity checking and encryption are only known to the two (real) endpoints. Authentication can help prevent a "Man-in-the-Middle" attack, where someone who knows the keys can set himself up between the two endpoints, and without their knowledge can masquerade as the other endpoint to each end. Note that a Man in the Middle can both read the data and modify it, without either of the endpoints being aware that this has happened.

Choosing and configuring the IPsec algorithms and keys, as well as any other required connection parameters for a link is a complex task and also has its own security implications as compatible parameters, including the keys, need to be established at both ends of the link while at the same time ensuring the keys remain accessible only to the two ends. If you use any form of communication to do this and that communication channel is not itself secure, you have potentially lost your link security. For this reason there is a protocol known as IKE (Internet Key Exchange) which automatically negotiates and selects algorithms, keys and other parameters, and installs them at each end of the link, using a secure channel between the two systems. The FireBrick supports version 2 of the IKE protocol (IKEv2). IKE uses Public Key Cryptographic mechanisms to select the keys to be used, using the Diffie-Hellman key exchange mechanism. IKE also performs authentication between the two link endpoints using for example X.509 certificates, pre-shared secrets or other methods such as those supported by EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol). It is still necessary to install suitable certificates, secrets or methods, obviously, but the configuration is simpler and more secure.

An IPsec IKE connection is established in two logical stages; first a secure control channel for the IKE negotiation is set up, and the peers authenticate each other using this channel, and then algorithms and keys to be used to secure the IPsec data are negotiated and exchanged using the secure channel. The control channel remains open during the lifetime of the connection, and is used to test the connection status, to cleanly close the link down, and also to periodically regenerate the algorithm key data (which mitigates the possibility that a third party has managed to crack the keys currently in use). During the first stage, the peers agree on algorithms to be used for integrity checking and encrypting the control channel, and additionally on algorithms to be used to securely generate the required keying data. These are agreed by the originating peer making a proposal, referred to below as the IKE proposal and the responding peer then selects the best algorithms which it supports. A similar, separate, proposal (referred to below as the IPsec proposal) is used to select the algorithms to be used for the IPsec data channel.

IPsec can also be used in what is known as manual-keying mode. When used in this way, IKE is not used; system administrators at each end of the link need to choose and agree on the integrity and encryption keys to be used, using some private mechanism which they know to be secure, before the IPsec connection is configured. For example, the system administrators may already know each other, and may arrange to meet in private and exchange keying information (which they trust they will not divulge to anyone else), and then configure their FireBricks to use the agreed keys. This is not a recommended approach as it it relies on the system administrators choosing good (ie random and unguessable) keys and keeping them secure. It also provides no way to automatically regenerate the keys regularly.

To fully appreciate the mechanism of authentication, it is necessary to understand the concept of IKE Identities. Each end of an IPsec/IKE peering has an identity, and the purpose of the IKE authentication process is to establish the identity to the peer - ie prove to the peer that you are the identity you proclaim to be. An IKE identity can take one of a variety of forms - it may be an IP address (IPv4 or IPv6), an email address, a domain name or a key identifier. It is important to understand that these forms are, in a sense, notional - you do not have to actually be addressable using a particular IP to proclaim it as your identity, nor do you have to be contactable by an email address if that form is used, nor does a domain name need to be resolvable to your IP address (or, indeed, resolvable at all). This is not unlike the use of personal names, at least in the UK, where you do not have to use your official birth certificate name - you can use any name provided that you can prove that you are associated with that name.

Each end of an IKE connection authenticates itself to its peer by signing a block of data which includes its identity along with other connection-specific data. Depending on the authentication method, the signature is generated using a pre-shared secret, a private key associated with an X.509 end-entity certificate, or a key determined by an EAP exchange.

If a peer authenticates using a pre-shared secret, you trust he is who he says he is simply by virtue of his knowledge of the secret. With certificates the situation is more complex: a successful signature verification using a certificate simply proves that the peer has the private key associated with the certificate used. To accept the authentication you also need to trust the certificate - ie you need to believe that the certificate does indeed belong to the peer. One way to do this is to use a self-signed end-entity certificate - in this case your peer gives you a copy of his certificate in advance, and you choose to trust it on this basis. To avoid needing to install a separate certificate for every peer you may need to authenticate with, it is more normal to have a chain of trust - you elect to trust a certificate from a certificate authority (CA), and you then implicitly trust any certificates which have been signed by that authority using that certificate (and in turn any subordinate certificates signed by these) without needing to explicitly install any of them beforehand. In other words, you are trusting that the CA (and any intermediates) who issued the certificate checked that the intended owner was entitled to use the certificate before issuing it. A certificate includes various data items including the identity of the owner, so the final step in the authentication check using a certificate is to confirm that the certificate used is valid, and its owner identity matches the IKE identity claimed by the peer.

There are some global parameters affecting all connections which can be set on the main IPsec entry.

The logging options log, log-error, and log-debug can be used to steer logging information which is not specific to a particular connection to a selected logging target.

The allow and trusted entries can be used to restrict IKE connections to particular IPs and/or IP ranges. An IKE connection request can potentially be received from any device, and setting up a connection involves some CPU-intensive calculations. The IKE implementation attempts to guard against the possibility of Denial-of-Service attacks from rogue devices requesting bogus connections by limiting the initial connection rate, but for added security allow and trusted settings are also provided. Connections from IPs in either of the two lists are always accepted, and those in the trusted list are processed at higher priority. If an allow list has been set, connection attempts from IPs not in the allow or trusted lists are not accepted.

There is also a Force-NAT option which will force the FireBrick to assume that remote devices on the list are behind NAT boxes. IKE has built-in NAT detection so this option is rarely needed. See the separate section on NAT Traversal for more details.

When IKE connections are negotiated, a selection of compatible algorithms and keys for integrity checking and encryption are negotiated. The initiating end of the connection provides proposals of various combinations of algorithms it is willing to use, and the responding end picks a suitable set. The IKE implementation has built-in default proposal lists, which are suitable for normal use, but for tighter control further proposals can be configured. An IPsec IKE connection consists of two separate communication paths - the IKE control security association, and the IPsec data connection, and these have separate proposals, which are configured using the Proposal for IKE security association and Proposal for IPsec AH/ESP security association sections. See the later discussion on algorithms for further details.

IKE Road Warrior connections provide the ability for users to set up a VPN for remote access to a network. When a client connects an IPv4 and/or IPv6 address and other network data are allocated and communicated to the client for the duration of the connection. The details are configured in a roaming pool section, which can be referenced from one or more IKE connection sections. The pool of IPv4 and/or IPv6 address ranges for allocation needs to be configured here, and optionally a list of addresses of DNS and/or Windows NetBios name servers (NBNS) can be configured. If the IP address(es) to be assigned are not fully addressable on the internet, and the client is to be given internet access in addition to access to the local server network, the nat option can be given to make the FireBrick perform network address translation on sessions initiated by the client.

Note that there is a restriction on the total number of IPs (both IPv4 and IPv6 combined) of approximately 65536 addresses - ie a single IPv4 range of /16, or a single IPv6 range of /112.

To set up a new IKE connection, select "Add: New: IKE connections" on the IPsec configuration page.

There are a large number of options available for configuring a connection, but the majority can usually be left at their default settings.

To set up a new manually-keyed IPsec tunnel select "Add: New IPsec manually-keyed connections" on the top-level IPsec setup page.

        xxd -len 20 -p /dev/random

StrongSwan supports IKEv2 with a comprehensive implementation. Consider a tunnel between a FireBrick and a Linux system with the following setup:

A suitable FireBrick xml config for this would be:

<ipsec-ike>
  <connection name = "StrongSwan IKE"
    local-ip="192.168.1.1" peer-ips="192.168.2.2"
    mode="Immediate"
    blackhole="true"
    auth-method="Secret" secret="Nobody will ever guess this!"
    routes="10.2.2.0/24" />
</ipsec-ike>

A corresponding /etc/ipsec.config connection entry would be:

conn FireBrick
  left=192.168.2.2
  leftsubnet=10.2.2.0/24
  right=192.168.1.1
  rightsubnet=10.1.1.0/24
  reauth=no
  auto=add
  leftauth=psk
  rightauth=psk

The secret should be entered in /etc/ipsec.secrets as follows:

FireBrick : PSK "Nobody will ever guess this!"

The Android OS releases up to and including the current (Lollipop) release do not support IKEv2 natively, but a Road Warrior VPN can be set up using the StrongSwan app.

To set up a client VPN connection on an Android device, perform the following steps

Apple have only recently introduced support for IKEv2 on iOS (since iOS version 8.1) and it is currently somewhat incomplete with rough edges. There is not yet a way to configure an IKEv2 VPN using the device UI. A profile containing all the connection details must be prepared elsewhere and downloaded/installed on the client.

To set up a client VPN connection on an iOS device, perform the following steps

Unfortunately there is no logging or diagnostics available on the iOS device. If the connection fails to establish, the FireBrick IPsec debug logging may be helpful.

Setting up manual keying under Linux is possible using the ipsec-tools utility. Care should be taken if the Linux system is running an IKE or IKEv2 daemon, as this may interfere with the manual kernel IPsec configuration using ipsec-tools.

Consider a tunnel between a FireBrick and a Linux system with the following setup:

A suitable FireBrick xml config for this would be:

<ipsec-ike>
  <manually-keyed name = "Linux Manual"
    local-ip="192.168.1.1" peer-ips="192.168.2.2"
    local-spi="1000" remote-spi="2000" type="ESP"
    auth-algorithm="HMAC-SHA1"
    auth-key="0123456789012345678901234567890123456789"
    crypt-algorithm="AES-CBC"
    crypt-key="00010203040506070809101112131415"
    routes="10.2.2.0/24" />
</ipsec-ike>

A corresponding ipsec-tools config file would be:

  flush;
  spdflush;

  add 192.168.2.2 192.168.1.1 esp 1000 -m tunnel
    -E rijndael-cbc 0x00010203040506070809101112131415
    -A hmac-sha1 0x0123456789012345678901234567890123456789;
  
  add 192.168.1.1 192.168.2.2 esp 2000 -m tunnel
    -E rijndael-cbc 0x00010203040506070809101112131415
    -A hmac-sha1 0x0123456789012345678901234567890123456789;

  spdadd 10.1.1.0/24 10.2.2.0/24 any
    -P in ipsec esp/tunnel/192.168.1.1-192.168.2.2/require;
  spdadd 10.2.2.0/24 10.1.1.0/24 any
    -P out ipsec esp/tunnel/192.168.2.2-192.168.1.1/require;

Note that rijndael is the name used by ipsec-tools for the AES algorithm.