4 - Support of Diffie-Hellman group 31 using Curve25519 for IKE as defined
7 - Support of Ed25519 digital signature algorithm for IKEv2 as defined by
8 draft-ietf-ipsecme-eddsa. Ed25519-based public key pairs, X.509 certificates
9 and CRLs can be generated and printed by the pki tool.
11 - In-place update of cached base and delta CRLs does no leave dozens
12 of stale copies in cache memory.
18 - The newhope plugin implements the post-quantum NewHope key exchange algorithm
19 proposed in their 2015 paper by Erdem Alkim, Léo Ducas, Thomas Pöppelmann and
22 - The libstrongswan crypto factory now offers the registration of Extended
23 Output Functions (XOFs). Currently supported XOFs are SHAKE128 and SHAKE256
24 implemented by the sha3 plugin, ChaCHa20 implemented by the chapoly plugin
25 and the more traditional MGF1 Mask Generation Functions based on the SHA-1,
26 SHA-256 and SHA-512 hash algorithms implemented by the new mgf1 plugin.
28 - The pki tool, with help of the pkcs1 or openssl plugins, can parse private
29 keys in any of the supported formats without having to know the exact type.
30 So instead of having to specify rsa or ecdsa explicitly the keyword priv may
31 be used to indicate a private key of any type. Similarly, swanctl can load
32 any type of private key from the swanctl/private directory.
34 - The pki tool can handle RSASSA-PKCS1v1.5-with-SHA-3 signatures using the
37 - The VICI flush-certs command flushes certificates from the volatile
38 certificate cache. Optionally the type of the certificates to be
39 flushed (e.g. type = x509_crl) can be specified.
41 - Setting cache_crls = yes in strongswan.conf the vici plugin saves regular,
42 base and delta CRLs to disk.
44 - IKE fragmentation is now enabled by default with the default fragment size
45 set to 1280 bytes for both IP address families.
47 - libtpmtss: In the TSS2 API the function TeardownSocketTcti() was replaced by
54 - The new libtpmtss library offers support for both TPM 1.2 and TPM 2.0
55 Trusted Platform Modules. This allows the Attestation IMC/IMV pair to
56 do TPM 2.0 based attestation.
58 - The behavior during IKEv2 exchange collisions has been improved/fixed in
59 several corner cases and support for TEMPORARY_FAILURE and CHILD_SA_NOT_FOUND
60 notifies, as defined by RFC 7296, has been added.
62 - IPsec policy priorities can be set manually (e.g. for high-priority drop
63 policies) and outbound policies may be restricted to a network interface.
65 - The scheme for the automatically calculated default priorities has been
66 changed and now also considers port masks, which were added with 5.4.0.
68 - FWD policies are now installed in both directions in regards to the traffic
69 selectors. Because such "outbound" FWD policies could conflict with "inbound"
70 FWD policies of other SAs they are installed with a lower priority and don't
71 have a reqid set, which allows kernel plugins to distinguish between the two
72 and prefer those with a reqid.
74 - For outbound IPsec SAs no replay window is configured anymore.
76 - Enhanced the functionality of the swanctl --list-conns command by listing
77 IKE_SA and CHILD_SA reauthentication and rekeying settings, and EAP/XAuth
78 identities and EAP types.
80 - DNS servers installed by the resolve plugin are now refcounted, which should
81 fix its use with make-before-break reauthentication. Any output written to
82 stderr/stdout by resolvconf is now logged.
84 - The methods in the kernel interfaces have been changed to take structs instead
85 of long lists of arguments. Similarly the constructors for peer_cfg_t and
86 child_cfg_t now take structs.
92 - Support for IKEv2 redirection (RFC 5685) has been added. Plugins may
93 implement the redirect_provider_t interface to decide if and when to redirect
94 connecting clients. It is also possible to redirect established IKE_SAs based
95 on different selectors via VICI/swanctl. Unless disabled in strongswan.conf
96 the charon daemon will follow redirect requests received from servers.
98 - The ike: prefix enables the explicit configuration of signature scheme
99 constraints against IKEv2 authentication in rightauth, which allows the use
100 of different signature schemes for trustchain verification and authentication.
102 - The initiator of an IKEv2 make-before-break reauthentication now suspends
103 online certificate revocation checks (OCSP, CRLs) until the new IKE_SA and all
104 CHILD_SAs are established. This is required if the checks are done over the
105 CHILD_SA established with the new IKE_SA. This is not possible until the
106 initiator installs this SA and that only happens after the authentication is
107 completed successfully. So we suspend the checks during the reauthentication
108 and do them afterwards, if they fail the IKE_SA is closed. This change has no
109 effect on the behavior during the authentication of the initial IKE_SA.
111 - For the vici plugin a Vici:Session Perl CPAN module has been added to allow
112 Perl applications to control and/or monitor the IKE daemon using the VICI
113 interface, similar to the existing Python egg or Ruby gem.
115 - Traffic selectors with port ranges can now be configured in the Linux kernel:
116 e.g. remote_ts = 10.1.0.0/16[tcp/20-23] local_ts = dynamic[tcp/32768-65535].
117 The port range must map to a port mask, though since the kernel does not
118 support arbitrary ranges.
120 - The vici plugin allows the configuration of IPv4 and IPv6 address ranges
121 in local and remote traffic selectors. Since both the Linux kernel and
122 iptables cannot handle arbitrary ranges, address ranges are mapped to the next
123 larger CIDR subnet by the kernel-netlink and updown plugins, respectively.
125 - Implemented IKEv1 IPv4/IPv6 address subnet and range identities that can be
126 used as owners of shared secrets.
132 - Properly handle potential EINTR errors in sigwaitinfo(2) calls that replaced
133 sigwait(3) calls with 5.3.4.
135 - RADIUS retransmission timeouts are now configurable, courtesy of Thom Troy.
141 - Fixed an authentication bypass vulnerability in the eap-mschapv2 plugin that
142 was caused by insufficient verification of the internal state when handling
143 MSCHAPv2 Success messages received by the client.
144 This vulnerability has been registered as CVE-2015-8023.
146 - The sha3 plugin implements the SHA3 Keccak-F1600 hash algorithm family.
147 Within the strongSwan framework SHA3 is currently used for BLISS signatures
148 only because the OIDs for other signature algorithms haven't been defined
149 yet. Also the use of SHA3 for IKEv2 has not been standardized yet.
155 - Added support for the ChaCha20/Poly1305 AEAD cipher specified in RFC 7539 and
156 RFC 7634 using the chacha20poly1305 ike/esp proposal keyword. The new chapoly
157 plugin implements the cipher, if possible SSE-accelerated on x86/x64
158 architectures. It is usable both in IKEv2 and the strongSwan libipsec ESP
159 backend. On Linux 4.2 or newer the kernel-netlink plugin can configure the
162 - The vici interface now supports the configuration of auxiliary certification
163 authority information as CRL and OCSP URIs.
165 - In the bliss plugin the c_indices derivation using a SHA-512 based random
166 oracle has been fixed, generalized and standardized by employing the MGF1 mask
167 generation function with SHA-512. As a consequence BLISS signatures unsing the
168 improved oracle are not compatible with the earlier implementation.
170 - Support for auto=route with right=%any for transport mode connections has
171 been added (the ikev2/trap-any scenario provides examples).
173 - The starter daemon does not flush IPsec policies and SAs anymore when it is
174 stopped. Already existing duplicate policies are now overwritten by the IKE
175 daemon when it installs its policies.
177 - Init limits (like charon.init_limit_half_open) can now optionally be enforced
178 when initiating SAs via VICI. For this, IKE_SAs initiated by the daemon are
179 now also counted as half-open SAs, which, as a side-effect, fixes the status
180 output while connecting (e.g. in ipsec status).
182 - Symmetric configuration of EAP methods in left|rightauth is now possible when
183 mutual EAP-only authentication is used (previously, the client had to
184 configure rightauth=eap or rightauth=any, which prevented it from using this
185 same config as responder).
187 - The initiator flag in the IKEv2 header is compared again (wasn't the case
188 since 5.0.0) and packets that have the flag set incorrectly are again ignored.
190 - Implemented a demo Hardcopy Device IMC/IMV pair based on the "Hardcopy
191 Device Health Assessment Trusted Network Connect Binding" (HCD-TNC)
192 document drafted by the IEEE Printer Working Group (PWG).
194 - Fixed IF-M segmentation which failed in the presence of multiple small
195 attributes in front of a huge attribute to be segmented.
201 - Fixed a vulnerability that allowed rogue servers with a valid certificate
202 accepted by the client to trick it into disclosing its username and even
203 password (if the client accepts EAP-GTC). This was caused because constraints
204 against the responder's authentication were enforced too late.
205 This vulnerability has been registered as CVE-2015-4171.
211 - Fixed a denial-of-service and potential remote code execution vulnerability
212 triggered by IKEv1/IKEv2 messages that contain payloads for the respective
213 other IKE version. Such payload are treated specially since 5.2.2 but because
214 they were still identified by their original payload type they were used as
215 such in some places causing invalid function pointer dereferences.
216 The vulnerability has been registered as CVE-2015-3991.
218 - The new aesni plugin provides CBC, CTR, XCBC, CMAC, CCM and GCM crypto
219 primitives for AES-128/192/256. The plugin requires AES-NI and PCLMULQDQ
220 instructions and works on both x86 and x64 architectures. It provides
221 superior crypto performance in userland without any external libraries.
227 - Added support for IKEv2 make-before-break reauthentication. By using a global
228 CHILD_SA reqid allocation mechanism, charon supports overlapping CHILD_SAs.
229 This allows the use of make-before-break instead of the previously supported
230 break-before-make reauthentication, avoiding connectivity gaps during that
231 procedure. As the new mechanism may fail with peers not supporting it (such
232 as any previous strongSwan release) it must be explicitly enabled using
233 the charon.make_before_break strongswan.conf option.
235 - Support for "Signature Authentication in IKEv2" (RFC 7427) has been added.
236 This allows the use of stronger hash algorithms for public key authentication.
237 By default, signature schemes are chosen based on the strength of the
238 signature key, but specific hash algorithms may be configured in leftauth.
240 - Key types and hash algorithms specified in rightauth are now also checked
241 against IKEv2 signature schemes. If such constraints are used for certificate
242 chain validation in existing configurations, in particular with peers that
243 don't support RFC 7427, it may be necessary to disable this feature with the
244 charon.signature_authentication_constraints setting, because the signature
245 scheme used in classic IKEv2 public key authentication may not be strong
248 - The new connmark plugin allows a host to bind conntrack flows to a specific
249 CHILD_SA by applying and restoring the SA mark to conntrack entries. This
250 allows a peer to handle multiple transport mode connections coming over the
251 same NAT device for client-initiated flows. A common use case is to protect
252 L2TP/IPsec, as supported by some systems.
254 - The forecast plugin can forward broadcast and multicast messages between
255 connected clients and a LAN. For CHILD_SA using unique marks, it sets up
256 the required Netfilter rules and uses a multicast/broadcast listener that
257 forwards such messages to all connected clients. This plugin is designed for
258 Windows 7 IKEv2 clients, which announces its services over the tunnel if the
259 negotiated IPsec policy allows it.
261 - For the vici plugin a Python Egg has been added to allow Python applications
262 to control or monitor the IKE daemon using the VICI interface, similar to the
263 existing ruby gem. The Python library has been contributed by Björn Schuberg.
265 - EAP server methods now can fulfill public key constraints, such as rightcert
266 or rightca. Additionally, public key and signature constraints can be
267 specified for EAP methods in the rightauth keyword. Currently the EAP-TLS and
268 EAP-TTLS methods provide verification details to constraints checking.
270 - Upgrade of the BLISS post-quantum signature algorithm to the improved BLISS-B
271 variant. Can be used in conjunction with the SHA256, SHA384 and SHA512 hash
272 algorithms with SHA512 being the default.
274 - The IF-IMV 1.4 interface now makes the IP address of the TNC access requestor
275 as seen by the TNC server available to all IMVs. This information can be
276 forwarded to policy enforcement points (e.g. firewalls or routers).
278 - The new mutual tnccs-20 plugin parameter activates mutual TNC measurements
279 in PB-TNC half-duplex mode between two endpoints over either a PT-EAP or
280 PT-TLS transport medium.
286 - Fixed a denial-of-service vulnerability triggered by an IKEv2 Key Exchange
287 payload that contains the Diffie-Hellman group 1025. This identifier was
288 used internally for DH groups with custom generator and prime. Because
289 these arguments are missing when creating DH objects based on the KE payload
290 an invalid pointer dereference occurred. This allowed an attacker to crash
291 the IKE daemon with a single IKE_SA_INIT message containing such a KE
292 payload. The vulnerability has been registered as CVE-2014-9221.
294 - The left/rightid options in ipsec.conf, or any other identity in strongSwan,
295 now accept prefixes to enforce an explicit type, such as email: or fqdn:.
296 Note that no conversion is done for the remaining string, refer to
297 ipsec.conf(5) for details.
299 - The post-quantum Bimodal Lattice Signature Scheme (BLISS) can be used as
300 an IKEv2 public key authentication method. The pki tool offers full support
301 for the generation of BLISS key pairs and certificates.
303 - Fixed mapping of integrity algorithms negotiated for AH via IKEv1. This could
304 cause interoperability issues when connecting to older versions of charon.
310 - The new charon-systemd IKE daemon implements an IKE daemon tailored for use
311 with systemd. It avoids the dependency on ipsec starter and uses swanctl
312 as configuration backend, building a simple and lightweight solution. It
313 supports native systemd journal logging.
315 - Support for IKEv2 fragmentation as per RFC 7383 has been added. Like IKEv1
316 fragmentation it can be enabled by setting fragmentation=yes in ipsec.conf.
318 - Support of the TCG TNC IF-M Attribute Segmentation specification proposal.
319 All attributes can be segmented. Additionally TCG/SWID Tag, TCG/SWID Tag ID
320 and IETF/Installed Packages attributes can be processed incrementally on a
323 - The new ext-auth plugin calls an external script to implement custom IKE_SA
324 authorization logic, courtesy of Vyronas Tsingaras.
326 - For the vici plugin a ruby gem has been added to allow ruby applications
327 to control or monitor the IKE daemon. The vici documentation has been updated
328 to include a description of the available operations and some simple examples
329 using both the libvici C interface and the ruby gem.
335 - strongSwan has been ported to the Windows platform. Using a MinGW toolchain,
336 many parts of the strongSwan codebase run natively on Windows 7 / 2008 R2
337 and newer releases. charon-svc implements a Windows IKE service based on
338 libcharon, the kernel-iph and kernel-wfp plugins act as networking and IPsec
339 backend on the Windows platform. socket-win provides a native IKE socket
340 implementation, while winhttp fetches CRL and OCSP information using the
343 - The new vici plugin provides a Versatile IKE Configuration Interface for
344 charon. Using the stable IPC interface, external applications can configure,
345 control and monitor the IKE daemon. Instead of scripting the ipsec tool
346 and generating ipsec.conf, third party applications can use the new interface
347 for more control and better reliability.
349 - Built upon the libvici client library, swanctl implements the first user of
350 the VICI interface. Together with a swanctl.conf configuration file,
351 connections can be defined, loaded and managed. swanctl provides a portable,
352 complete IKE configuration and control interface for the command line.
353 The first six swanctl example scenarios have been added.
355 - The SWID IMV implements a JSON-based REST API which allows the exchange
356 of SWID tags and Software IDs with the strongTNC policy manager.
358 - The SWID IMC can extract all installed packages from the dpkg (Debian,
359 Ubuntu, Linux Mint etc.), rpm (Fedora, RedHat, OpenSUSE, etc.), or
360 pacman (Arch Linux, Manjaro, etc.) package managers, respectively, using the
361 swidGenerator (https://github.com/strongswan/swidGenerator) which generates
362 SWID tags according to the new ISO/IEC 19770-2:2014 standard.
364 - All IMVs now share the access requestor ID, device ID and product info
365 of an access requestor via a common imv_session object.
367 - The Attestation IMC/IMV pair supports the IMA-NG measurement format
368 introduced with the Linux 3.13 kernel.
370 - The aikgen tool generates an Attestation Identity Key bound to a TPM.
372 - Implemented the PT-EAP transport protocol (RFC 7171) for Trusted Network
375 - The ipsec.conf replay_window option defines connection specific IPsec replay
376 windows. Original patch courtesy of Zheng Zhong and Christophe Gouault from
383 - Fixed an authentication bypass vulnerability triggered by rekeying an
384 unestablished IKEv2 SA while it gets actively initiated. This allowed an
385 attacker to trick a peer's IKE_SA state to established, without the need to
386 provide any valid authentication credentials. The vulnerability has been
387 registered as CVE-2014-2338.
389 - The acert plugin evaluates X.509 Attribute Certificates. Group membership
390 information encoded as strings can be used to fulfill authorization checks
391 defined with the rightgroups option. Attribute Certificates can be loaded
392 locally or get exchanged in IKEv2 certificate payloads.
394 - The pki command gained support to generate X.509 Attribute Certificates
395 using the --acert subcommand, while the --print command supports the ac type.
396 The openac utility has been removed in favor of the new pki functionality.
398 - The libtls TLS 1.2 implementation as used by EAP-(T)TLS and other protocols
399 has been extended by AEAD mode support, currently limited to AES-GCM.
405 - A new default configuration file layout is introduced. The new default
406 strongswan.conf file mainly includes config snippets from the strongswan.d
407 and strongswan.d/charon directories (the latter containing snippets for all
408 plugins). The snippets, with commented defaults, are automatically
409 generated and installed, if they don't exist yet. They are also installed
410 in $prefix/share/strongswan/templates so existing files can be compared to
411 the current defaults.
413 - As an alternative to the non-extensible charon.load setting, the plugins
414 to load in charon (and optionally other applications) can now be determined
415 via the charon.plugins.<name>.load setting for each plugin (enabled in the
416 new default strongswan.conf file via the charon.load_modular option).
417 The load setting optionally takes a numeric priority value that allows
418 reordering the plugins (otherwise the default plugin order is preserved).
420 - All strongswan.conf settings that were formerly defined in library specific
421 "global" sections are now application specific (e.g. settings for plugins in
422 libstrongswan.plugins can now be set only for charon in charon.plugins).
423 The old options are still supported, which now allows to define defaults for
424 all applications in the libstrongswan section.
426 - The ntru libstrongswan plugin supports NTRUEncrypt as a post-quantum
427 computer IKE key exchange mechanism. The implementation is based on the
428 ntru-crypto library from the NTRUOpenSourceProject. The supported security
429 strengths are ntru112, ntru128, ntru192, and ntru256. Since the private DH
430 group IDs 1030..1033 have been assigned, the strongSwan Vendor ID must be
431 sent (charon.send_vendor_id = yes) in order to use NTRU.
433 - Defined a TPMRA remote attestation workitem and added support for it to the
436 - Compatibility issues between IPComp (compress=yes) and leftfirewall=yes as
437 well as multiple subnets in left|rightsubnet have been fixed.
439 - When enabling its "session" strongswan.conf option, the xauth-pam plugin opens
440 and closes a PAM session for each established IKE_SA. Patch courtesy of
443 - The strongSwan unit testing framework has been rewritten without the "check"
444 dependency for improved flexibility and portability. It now properly supports
445 multi-threaded and memory leak testing and brings a bunch of new test cases.
451 - Fixed a denial-of-service vulnerability and potential authorization bypass
452 triggered by a crafted ID_DER_ASN1_DN ID payload. The cause is an insufficient
453 length check when comparing such identities. The vulnerability has been
454 registered as CVE-2013-6075.
456 - Fixed a denial-of-service vulnerability triggered by a crafted IKEv1
457 fragmentation payload. The cause is a NULL pointer dereference. The
458 vulnerability has been registered as CVE-2013-6076.
460 - The lean stand-alone pt-tls-client can set up a RFC 6876 PT-TLS session
461 with a strongSwan policy enforcement point which uses the tnc-pdp charon
464 - The new TCG TNC SWID IMC/IMV pair supports targeted SWID requests for either
465 full SWID Tag or concise SWID Tag ID inventories.
467 - The XAuth backend in eap-radius now supports multiple XAuth exchanges for
468 different credential types and display messages. All user input gets
469 concatenated and verified with a single User-Password RADIUS attribute on
470 the AAA. With an AAA supporting it, one for example can implement
471 Password+Token authentication with proper dialogs on iOS and OS X clients.
473 - charon supports IKEv1 Mode Config exchange in push mode. The ipsec.conf
474 modeconfig=push option enables it for both client and server, the same way
477 - Using the "ah" ipsec.conf keyword on both IKEv1 and IKEv2 connections,
478 charon can negotiate and install Security Associations integrity-protected by
479 the Authentication Header protocol. Supported are plain AH(+IPComp) SAs only,
480 but not the deprecated RFC2401 style ESP+AH bundles.
482 - The generation of initialization vectors for IKE and ESP (when using libipsec)
483 is now modularized and IVs for e.g. AES-GCM are now correctly allocated
484 sequentially, while other algorithms like AES-CBC still use random IVs.
486 - The left and right options in ipsec.conf can take multiple address ranges
487 and subnets. This allows connection matching against a larger set of
488 addresses, for example to use a different connection for clients connecting
489 from a internal network.
491 - For all those who have a queasy feeling about the NIST elliptic curve set,
492 the Brainpool curves introduced for use with IKE by RFC 6932 might be a
493 more trustworthy alternative.
495 - The kernel-libipsec userland IPsec backend now supports usage statistics,
496 volume based rekeying and accepts ESPv3 style TFC padded packets.
498 - With two new strongswan.conf options fwmarks can be used to implement
499 host-to-host tunnels with kernel-libipsec.
501 - load-tester supports transport mode connections and more complex traffic
502 selectors, including such using unique ports for each tunnel.
504 - The new dnscert plugin provides support for authentication via CERT RRs that
505 are protected via DNSSEC. The plugin was created by Ruslan N. Marchenko.
507 - The eap-radius plugin supports forwarding of several Cisco Unity specific
508 RADIUS attributes in corresponding configuration payloads.
510 - Database transactions are now abstracted and implemented by the two backends.
511 If you use MySQL make sure all tables use the InnoDB engine.
513 - libstrongswan now can provide an experimental custom implementation of the
514 printf family functions based on klibc if neither Vstr nor glibc style printf
515 hooks are available. This can avoid the Vstr dependency on some systems at
516 the cost of slower and less complete printf functions.
522 - Fixed a denial-of-service vulnerability triggered by specific XAuth usernames
523 and EAP identities (since 5.0.3), and PEM files (since 4.1.11). The crash
524 was caused by insufficient error handling in the is_asn1() function.
525 The vulnerability has been registered as CVE-2013-5018.
527 - The new charon-cmd command line IKE client can establish road warrior
528 connections using IKEv1 or IKEv2 with different authentication profiles.
529 It does not depend on any configuration files and can be configured using a
530 few simple command line options.
532 - The kernel-pfroute networking backend has been greatly improved. It now
533 can install virtual IPs on TUN devices on OS X and FreeBSD, allowing these
534 systems to act as a client in common road warrior scenarios.
536 - The new kernel-libipsec plugin uses TUN devices and libipsec to provide IPsec
537 processing in userland on Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X.
539 - The eap-radius plugin can now serve as an XAuth backend called xauth-radius,
540 directly verifying XAuth credentials using RADIUS User-Name/User-Password
541 attributes. This is more efficient than the existing xauth-eap+eap-radius
542 combination, and allows RADIUS servers without EAP support to act as AAA
545 - The new osx-attr plugin installs configuration attributes (currently DNS
546 servers) via SystemConfiguration on Mac OS X. The keychain plugin provides
547 certificates from the OS X keychain service.
549 - The sshkey plugin parses SSH public keys, which, together with the --agent
550 option for charon-cmd, allows the use of ssh-agent for authentication.
551 To configure SSH keys in ipsec.conf the left|rightrsasigkey options are
552 replaced with left|rightsigkey, which now take public keys in one of three
553 formats: SSH (RFC 4253, ssh: prefix), DNSKEY (RFC 3110, dns: prefix), and
554 PKCS#1 (the default, no prefix).
556 - Extraction of certificates and private keys from PKCS#12 files is now provided
557 by the new pkcs12 plugin or the openssl plugin. charon-cmd (--p12) as well
558 as charon (via P12 token in ipsec.secrets) can make use of this.
560 - IKEv2 can now negotiate transport mode and IPComp in NAT situations.
562 - IKEv2 exchange initiators now properly close an established IKE or CHILD_SA
563 on error conditions using an additional exchange, keeping state in sync
566 - Using a SQL database interface a Trusted Network Connect (TNC) Policy Manager
567 can generate specific measurement workitems for an arbitrary number of
568 Integrity Measurement Verifiers (IMVs) based on the history of the VPN user
571 - Several core classes in libstrongswan are now tested with unit tests. These
572 can be enabled with --enable-unit-tests and run with 'make check'. Coverage
573 reports can be generated with --enable-coverage and 'make coverage' (this
574 disables any optimization, so it should not be enabled when building
575 production releases).
577 - The leak-detective developer tool has been greatly improved. It works much
578 faster/stabler with multiple threads, does not use deprecated malloc hooks
579 anymore and has been ported to OS X.
581 - chunk_hash() is now based on SipHash-2-4 with a random key. This provides
582 better distribution and prevents hash flooding attacks when used with
585 - All default plugins implement the get_features() method to define features
586 and their dependencies. The plugin loader has been improved, so that plugins
587 in a custom load statement can be ordered freely or to express preferences
588 without being affected by dependencies between plugin features.
590 - A centralized thread can take care for watching multiple file descriptors
591 concurrently. This removes the need for a dedicated listener threads in
592 various plugins. The number of "reserved" threads for such tasks has been
593 reduced to about five, depending on the plugin configuration.
595 - Plugins that can be controlled by a UNIX socket IPC mechanism gained network
596 transparency. Third party applications querying these plugins now can use
597 TCP connections from a different host.
599 - libipsec now supports AES-GCM.
605 - Fixed a security vulnerability in the openssl plugin which was reported by
606 Kevin Wojtysiak. The vulnerability has been registered as CVE-2013-2944.
607 Before the fix, if the openssl plugin's ECDSA signature verification was used,
608 due to a misinterpretation of the error code returned by the OpenSSL
609 ECDSA_verify() function, an empty or zeroed signature was accepted as a
612 - The handling of a couple of other non-security relevant openssl return codes
615 - The tnc_ifmap plugin now publishes virtual IPv4 and IPv6 addresses via its
616 TCG TNC IF-MAP 2.1 interface.
618 - The charon.initiator_only option causes charon to ignore IKE initiation
621 - The openssl plugin can now use the openssl-fips library.
627 - The new ipseckey plugin enables authentication based on trustworthy public
628 keys stored as IPSECKEY resource records in the DNS and protected by DNSSEC.
629 To do so it uses a DNSSEC enabled resolver, like the one provided by the new
630 unbound plugin, which is based on libldns and libunbound. Both plugins were
631 created by Reto Guadagnini.
633 - Implemented the TCG TNC IF-IMV 1.4 draft making access requestor identities
634 available to an IMV. The OS IMV stores the AR identity together with the
635 device ID in the attest database.
637 - The openssl plugin now uses the AES-NI accelerated version of AES-GCM
638 if the hardware supports it.
640 - The eap-radius plugin can now assign virtual IPs to IKE clients using the
641 Framed-IP-Address attribute by using the "%radius" named pool in the
642 rightsourceip ipsec.conf option. Cisco Banner attributes are forwarded to
643 Unity-capable IKEv1 clients during mode config. charon now sends Interim
644 Accounting updates if requested by the RADIUS server, reports
645 sent/received packets in Accounting messages, and adds a Terminate-Cause
648 - The recently introduced "ipsec listcounters" command can report connection
649 specific counters by passing a connection name, and global or connection
650 counters can be reset by the "ipsec resetcounters" command.
652 - The strongSwan libpttls library provides an experimental implementation of
653 PT-TLS (RFC 6876), a Posture Transport Protocol over TLS.
655 - The charon systime-fix plugin can disable certificate lifetime checks on
656 embedded systems if the system time is obviously out of sync after bootup.
657 Certificates lifetimes get checked once the system time gets sane, closing
658 or reauthenticating connections using expired certificates.
660 - The "ikedscp" ipsec.conf option can set DiffServ code points on outgoing
663 - The new xauth-noauth plugin allows to use basic RSA or PSK authentication with
664 clients that cannot be configured without XAuth authentication. The plugin
665 simply concludes the XAuth exchange successfully without actually performing
666 any authentication. Therefore, to use this backend it has to be selected
667 explicitly with rightauth2=xauth-noauth.
669 - The new charon-tkm IKEv2 daemon delegates security critical operations to a
670 separate process. This has the benefit that the network facing daemon has no
671 knowledge of keying material used to protect child SAs. Thus subverting
672 charon-tkm does not result in the compromise of cryptographic keys.
673 The extracted functionality has been implemented from scratch in a minimal TCB
674 (trusted computing base) in the Ada programming language. Further information
675 can be found at http://www.codelabs.ch/tkm/.
680 - Implemented all IETF Standard PA-TNC attributes and an OS IMC/IMV
681 pair using them to transfer operating system information.
683 - The new "ipsec listcounters" command prints a list of global counter values
684 about received and sent IKE messages and rekeyings.
686 - A new lookip plugin can perform fast lookup of tunnel information using a
687 clients virtual IP and can send notifications about established or deleted
688 tunnels. The "ipsec lookip" command can be used to query such information
689 or receive notifications.
691 - The new error-notify plugin catches some common error conditions and allows
692 an external application to receive notifications for them over a UNIX socket.
694 - IKE proposals can now use a PRF algorithm different to that defined for
695 integrity protection. If an algorithm with a "prf" prefix is defined
696 explicitly (such as prfsha1 or prfsha256), no implicit PRF algorithm based on
697 the integrity algorithm is added to the proposal.
699 - The pkcs11 plugin can now load leftcert certificates from a smartcard for a
700 specific ipsec.conf conn section and cacert CA certificates for a specific ca
703 - The load-tester plugin gained additional options for certificate generation
704 and can load keys and multiple CA certificates from external files. It can
705 install a dedicated outer IP address for each tunnel and tunnel initiation
706 batches can be triggered and monitored externally using the
707 "ipsec load-tester" tool.
709 - PKCS#7 container parsing has been modularized, and the openssl plugin
710 gained an alternative implementation to decrypt and verify such files.
711 In contrast to our own DER parser, OpenSSL can handle BER files, which is
712 required for interoperability of our scepclient with EJBCA.
714 - Support for the proprietary IKEv1 fragmentation extension has been added.
715 Fragments are always handled on receipt but only sent if supported by the peer
716 and if enabled with the new fragmentation ipsec.conf option.
718 - IKEv1 in charon can now parse certificates received in PKCS#7 containers and
719 supports NAT traversal as used by Windows clients. Patches courtesy of
722 - The new rdrand plugin provides a high quality / high performance random
723 source using the Intel rdrand instruction found on Ivy Bridge processors.
725 - The integration test environment was updated and now uses KVM and reproducible
726 guest images based on Debian.
732 - Introduced the sending of the standard IETF Assessment Result
733 PA-TNC attribute by all strongSwan Integrity Measurement Verifiers.
735 - Extended PTS Attestation IMC/IMV pair to provide full evidence of
736 the Linux IMA measurement process. All pertinent file information
737 of a Linux OS can be collected and stored in an SQL database.
739 - The PA-TNC and PB-TNC protocols can now process huge data payloads
740 >64 kB by distributing PA-TNC attributes over multiple PA-TNC messages
741 and these messages over several PB-TNC batches. As long as no
742 consolidated recommandation from all IMVs can be obtained, the TNC
743 server requests more client data by sending an empty SDATA batch.
745 - The rightgroups2 ipsec.conf option can require group membership during
746 a second authentication round, for example during XAuth authentication
747 against a RADIUS server.
749 - The xauth-pam backend can authenticate IKEv1 XAuth and Hybrid authenticated
750 clients against any PAM service. The IKEv2 eap-gtc plugin does not use
751 PAM directly anymore, but can use any XAuth backend to verify credentials,
754 - The new unity plugin brings support for some parts of the IKEv1 Cisco Unity
755 Extension. As client, charon narrows traffic selectors to the received
756 Split-Include attributes and automatically installs IPsec bypass policies
757 for received Local-LAN attributes. As server, charon sends Split-Include
758 attributes for leftsubnet definitions containing multiple subnets to Unity-
761 - An EAP-Nak payload is returned by clients if the gateway requests an EAP
762 method that the client does not support. Clients can also request a specific
763 EAP method by configuring that method with leftauth.
765 - The eap-dynamic plugin handles EAP-Nak payloads returned by clients and uses
766 these to select a different EAP method supported/requested by the client.
767 The plugin initially requests the first registered method or the first method
768 configured with charon.plugins.eap-dynamic.preferred.
770 - The new left/rightdns options specify connection specific DNS servers to
771 request/respond in IKEv2 configuration payloads or IKEv2 mode config. leftdns
772 can be any (comma separated) combination of %config4 and %config6 to request
773 multiple servers, both for IPv4 and IPv6. rightdns takes a list of DNS server
774 IP addresses to return.
776 - The left/rightsourceip options now accept multiple addresses or pools.
777 leftsourceip can be any (comma separated) combination of %config4, %config6
778 or fixed IP addresses to request. rightsourceip accepts multiple explicitly
779 specified or referenced named pools.
781 - Multiple connections can now share a single address pool when they use the
782 same definition in one of the rightsourceip pools.
784 - The options charon.interfaces_ignore and charon.interfaces_use allow one to
785 configure the network interfaces used by the daemon.
787 - The kernel-netlink plugin supports the charon.install_virtual_ip_on option,
788 which specifies the interface on which virtual IP addresses will be installed.
789 If it is not specified the current behavior of using the outbound interface
792 - The kernel-netlink plugin tries to keep the current source address when
793 looking for valid routes to reach other hosts.
795 - The autotools build has been migrated to use a config.h header. strongSwan
796 development headers will get installed during "make install" if
797 --with-dev-headers has been passed to ./configure.
799 - All crypto primitives gained return values for most operations, allowing
800 crypto backends to fail, for example when using hardware accelerators.
806 - The charon IKE daemon gained experimental support for the IKEv1 protocol.
807 Pluto has been removed from the 5.x series, and unless strongSwan is
808 configured with --disable-ikev1 or --disable-ikev2, charon handles both
809 keying protocols. The feature-set of IKEv1 in charon is almost on par with
810 pluto, but currently does not support AH or bundled AH+ESP SAs. Beside
811 RSA/ECDSA, PSK and XAuth, charon also supports the Hybrid authentication
812 mode. Informations for interoperability and migration is available at
813 http://wiki.strongswan.org/projects/strongswan/wiki/CharonPlutoIKEv1.
815 - Charon's bus_t has been refactored so that loggers and other listeners are
816 now handled separately. The single lock was previously cause for deadlocks
817 if extensive listeners, such as the one provided by the updown plugin, wanted
818 to acquire locks that were held by other threads which in turn tried to log
819 messages, and thus were waiting to acquire the same lock currently held by
820 the thread calling the listener.
821 The implemented changes also allow the use of a read/write-lock for the
822 loggers which increases performance if multiple loggers are registered.
823 Besides several interface changes this last bit also changes the semantics
824 for loggers as these may now be called by multiple threads at the same time.
826 - Source routes are reinstalled if interfaces are reactivated or IP addresses
829 - The thread pool (processor_t) now has more control over the lifecycle of
830 a job (see job.h for details). In particular, it now controls the destruction
831 of jobs after execution and the cancellation of jobs during shutdown. Due to
832 these changes the requeueing feature, previously available to callback_job_t
833 only, is now available to all jobs (in addition to a new rescheduling
836 - In addition to trustchain key strength definitions for different public key
837 systems, the rightauth option now takes a list of signature hash algorithms
838 considered save for trustchain validation. For example, the setting
839 rightauth=rsa-2048-ecdsa-256-sha256-sha384-sha512 requires a trustchain
840 that uses at least RSA-2048 or ECDSA-256 keys and certificate signatures
841 using SHA-256 or better.
847 - Fixed a security vulnerability in the gmp plugin. If this plugin was used
848 for RSA signature verification an empty or zeroed signature was handled as
851 - Fixed several issues with reauthentication and address updates.
857 - The tnc-pdp plugin implements a RADIUS server interface allowing
858 a strongSwan TNC server to act as a Policy Decision Point.
860 - The eap-radius authentication backend enforces Session-Timeout attributes
861 using RFC4478 repeated authentication and acts upon RADIUS Dynamic
862 Authorization extensions, RFC 5176. Currently supported are disconnect
863 requests and CoA messages containing a Session-Timeout.
865 - The eap-radius plugin can forward arbitrary RADIUS attributes from and to
866 clients using custom IKEv2 notify payloads. The new radattr plugin reads
867 attributes to include from files and prints received attributes to the
870 - Added support for untruncated MD5 and SHA1 HMACs in ESP as used in
873 - The cmac plugin implements the AES-CMAC-96 and AES-CMAC-PRF-128 algorithms
874 as defined in RFC 4494 and RFC 4615, respectively.
876 - The resolve plugin automatically installs nameservers via resolvconf(8),
877 if it is installed, instead of modifying /etc/resolv.conf directly.
879 - The IKEv2 charon daemon supports now raw RSA public keys in RFC 3110
880 DNSKEY and PKCS#1 file format.
886 - Upgraded the TCG IF-IMC and IF-IMV C API to the upcoming version 1.3
887 which supports IF-TNCCS 2.0 long message types, the exclusive flags
888 and multiple IMC/IMV IDs. Both the TNC Client and Server as well as
889 the "Test", "Scanner", and "Attestation" IMC/IMV pairs were updated.
891 - Fully implemented the "TCG Attestation PTS Protocol: Binding to IF-M"
892 standard (TLV-based messages only). TPM-based remote attestation of
893 Linux IMA (Integrity Measurement Architecture) possible. Measurement
894 reference values are automatically stored in an SQLite database.
896 - The EAP-RADIUS authentication backend supports RADIUS accounting. It sends
897 start/stop messages containing Username, Framed-IP and Input/Output-Octets
898 attributes and has been tested against FreeRADIUS and Microsoft NPS.
900 - Added support for PKCS#8 encoded private keys via the libstrongswan
901 pkcs8 plugin. This is the default format used by some OpenSSL tools since
902 version 1.0.0 (e.g. openssl req with -keyout).
904 - Added session resumption support to the strongSwan TLS stack.
910 - Because of changing checksums before and after installation which caused
911 the integrity tests to fail we avoided directly linking libsimaka, libtls and
912 libtnccs to those libcharon plugins which make use of these dynamic libraries.
913 Instead we linked the libraries to the charon daemon. Unfortunately Ubuntu
914 11.10 activated the --as-needed ld option which discards explicit links
915 to dynamic libraries that are not actually used by the charon daemon itself,
916 thus causing failures during the loading of the plugins which depend on these
917 libraries for resolving external symbols.
919 - Therefore our approach of computing integrity checksums for plugins had to be
920 changed radically by moving the hash generation from the compilation to the
921 post-installation phase.
927 - The new libstrongswan certexpire plugin collects expiration information of
928 all used certificates and exports them to CSV files. It either directly
929 exports them or uses cron style scheduling for batch exports.
931 - starter passes unresolved hostnames to charon, allowing it to do name
932 resolution not before the connection attempt. This is especially useful with
933 connections between hosts using dynamic IP addresses. Thanks to Mirko Parthey
934 for the initial patch.
936 - The android plugin can now be used without the Android frontend patch and
937 provides DNS server registration and logging to logcat.
939 - Pluto and starter (plus stroke and whack) have been ported to Android.
941 - Support for ECDSA private and public key operations has been added to the
942 pkcs11 plugin. The plugin now also provides DH and ECDH via PKCS#11 and can
943 use tokens as random number generators (RNG). By default only private key
944 operations are enabled, more advanced features have to be enabled by their
945 option in strongswan.conf. This also applies to public key operations (even
946 for keys not stored on the token) which were enabled by default before.
948 - The libstrongswan plugin system now supports detailed plugin dependencies.
949 Many plugins have been extended to export its capabilities and requirements.
950 This allows the plugin loader to resolve plugin loading order automatically,
951 and in future releases, to dynamically load the required features on demand.
952 Existing third party plugins are source (but not binary) compatible if they
953 properly initialize the new get_features() plugin function to NULL.
955 - The tnc-ifmap plugin implements a TNC IF-MAP 2.0 client which can deliver
956 metadata about IKE_SAs via a SOAP interface to a MAP server. The tnc-ifmap
957 plugin requires the Apache Axis2/C library.
963 - Our private libraries (e.g. libstrongswan) are not installed directly in
964 prefix/lib anymore. Instead a subdirectory is used (prefix/lib/ipsec/ by
965 default). The plugins directory is also moved from libexec/ipsec/ to that
968 - The dynamic IMC/IMV libraries were moved from the plugins directory to
969 a new imcvs directory in the prefix/lib/ipsec/ subdirectory.
971 - Job priorities were introduced to prevent thread starvation caused by too
972 many threads handling blocking operations (such as CRL fetching). Refer to
973 strongswan.conf(5) for details.
975 - Two new strongswan.conf options allow to fine-tune performance on IKEv2
976 gateways by dropping IKE_SA_INIT requests on high load.
978 - IKEv2 charon daemon supports start PASS and DROP shunt policies
979 preventing traffic to go through IPsec connections. Installation of the
980 shunt policies either via the XFRM netfilter or PFKEYv2 IPsec kernel
983 - The history of policies installed in the kernel is now tracked so that e.g.
984 trap policies are correctly updated when reauthenticated SAs are terminated.
986 - IMC/IMV Scanner pair implementing the RFC 5792 PA-TNC (IF-M) protocol.
987 Using "netstat -l" the IMC scans open listening ports on the TNC client
988 and sends a port list to the IMV which based on a port policy decides if
989 the client is admitted to the network.
990 (--enable-imc-scanner/--enable-imv-scanner).
992 - IMC/IMV Test pair implementing the RFC 5792 PA-TNC (IF-M) protocol.
993 (--enable-imc-test/--enable-imv-test).
995 - The IKEv2 close action does not use the same value as the ipsec.conf dpdaction
996 setting, but the value defined by its own closeaction keyword. The action
997 is triggered if the remote peer closes a CHILD_SA unexpectedly.
1003 - The whitelist plugin for the IKEv2 daemon maintains an in-memory identity
1004 whitelist. Any connection attempt of peers not whitelisted will get rejected.
1005 The 'ipsec whitelist' utility provides a simple command line frontend for
1006 whitelist administration.
1008 - The duplicheck plugin provides a specialized form of duplicate checking,
1009 doing a liveness check on the old SA and optionally notify a third party
1010 application about detected duplicates.
1012 - The coupling plugin permanently couples two or more devices by limiting
1013 authentication to previously used certificates.
1015 - In the case that the peer config and child config don't have the same name
1016 (usually in SQL database defined connections), ipsec up|route <peer config>
1017 starts|routes all associated child configs and ipsec up|route <child config>
1018 only starts|routes the specific child config.
1020 - fixed the encoding and parsing of X.509 certificate policy statements (CPS).
1022 - Duncan Salerno contributed the eap-sim-pcsc plugin implementing a
1023 pcsc-lite based SIM card backend.
1025 - The eap-peap plugin implements the EAP PEAP protocol. Interoperates
1026 successfully with a FreeRADIUS server and Windows 7 Agile VPN clients.
1028 - The IKEv2 daemon charon rereads strongswan.conf on SIGHUP and instructs
1029 all plugins to reload. Currently only the eap-radius and the attr plugins
1030 support configuration reloading.
1032 - Added userland support to the IKEv2 daemon for Extended Sequence Numbers
1033 support coming with Linux 2.6.39. To enable ESN on a connection, add
1034 the 'esn' keyword to the proposal. The default proposal uses 32-bit sequence
1035 numbers only ('noesn'), and the same value is used if no ESN mode is
1036 specified. To negotiate ESN support with the peer, include both, e.g.
1037 esp=aes128-sha1-esn-noesn.
1039 - In addition to ESN, Linux 2.6.39 gained support for replay windows larger
1040 than 32 packets. The new global strongswan.conf option 'charon.replay_window'
1041 configures the size of the replay window, in packets.
1047 - Sansar Choinyambuu implemented the RFC 5793 Posture Broker Protocol (BP)
1048 compatible with Trusted Network Connect (TNC). The TNCCS 2.0 protocol
1049 requires the tnccs_20, tnc_imc and tnc_imv plugins but does not depend
1050 on the libtnc library. Any available IMV/IMC pairs conforming to the
1051 Trusted Computing Group's TNC-IF-IMV/IMC 1.2 interface specification
1052 can be loaded via /etc/tnc_config.
1054 - Re-implemented the TNCCS 1.1 protocol by using the tnc_imc and tnc_imv
1055 in place of the external libtnc library.
1057 - The tnccs_dynamic plugin loaded on a TNC server in addition to the
1058 tnccs_11 and tnccs_20 plugins, dynamically detects the IF-TNCCS
1059 protocol version used by a TNC client and invokes an instance of
1060 the corresponding protocol stack.
1062 - IKE and ESP proposals can now be stored in an SQL database using a
1063 new proposals table. The start_action field in the child_configs
1064 tables allows the automatic starting or routing of connections stored
1067 - The new certificate_authorities and certificate_distribution_points
1068 tables make it possible to store CRL and OCSP Certificate Distribution
1069 points in an SQL database.
1071 - The new 'include' statement allows to recursively include other files in
1072 strongswan.conf. Existing sections and values are thereby extended and
1073 replaced, respectively.
1075 - Due to the changes in the parser for strongswan.conf, the configuration
1076 syntax for the attr plugin has changed. Previously, it was possible to
1077 specify multiple values of a specific attribute type by adding multiple
1078 key/value pairs with the same key (e.g. dns) to the plugins.attr section.
1079 Because values with the same key now replace previously defined values
1080 this is not possible anymore. As an alternative, multiple values can be
1081 specified by separating them with a comma (e.g. dns = 1.2.3.4, 2.3.4.5).
1083 - ipsec listalgs now appends (set in square brackets) to each crypto
1084 algorithm listed the plugin that registered the function.
1086 - Traffic Flow Confidentiality padding supported with Linux 2.6.38 can be used
1087 by the IKEv2 daemon. The ipsec.conf 'tfc' keyword pads all packets to a given
1088 boundary, the special value '%mtu' pads all packets to the path MTU.
1090 - The new af-alg plugin can use various crypto primitives of the Linux Crypto
1091 API using the AF_ALG interface introduced with 2.6.38. This removes the need
1092 for additional userland implementations of symmetric cipher, hash, hmac and
1095 - The IKEv2 daemon supports the INITIAL_CONTACT notify as initiator and
1096 responder. The notify is sent when initiating configurations with a unique
1097 policy, set in ipsec.conf via the global 'uniqueids' option.
1099 - The conftest conformance testing framework enables the IKEv2 stack to perform
1100 many tests using a distinct tool and configuration frontend. Various hooks
1101 can alter reserved bits, flags, add custom notifies and proposals, reorder
1102 or drop messages and much more. It is enabled using the --enable-conftest
1105 - The new libstrongswan constraints plugin provides advanced X.509 constraint
1106 checking. In addition to X.509 pathLen constraints, the plugin checks for
1107 nameConstraints and certificatePolicies, including policyMappings and
1108 policyConstraints. The x509 certificate plugin and the pki tool have been
1109 enhanced to support these extensions. The new left/rightcertpolicy ipsec.conf
1110 connection keywords take OIDs a peer certificate must have.
1112 - The left/rightauth ipsec.conf keywords accept values with a minimum strength
1113 for trustchain public keys in bits, such as rsa-2048 or ecdsa-256.
1115 - The revocation and x509 libstrongswan plugins and the pki tool gained basic
1116 support for delta CRLs.
1122 - IMPORTANT: the default keyexchange mode 'ike' is changing with release 4.5
1123 from 'ikev1' to 'ikev2', thus commemorating the five year anniversary of the
1124 IKEv2 RFC 4306 and its mature successor RFC 5996. The time has definitively
1125 come for IKEv1 to go into retirement and to cede its place to the much more
1126 robust, powerful and versatile IKEv2 protocol!
1128 - Added new ctr, ccm and gcm plugins providing Counter, Counter with CBC-MAC
1129 and Galois/Counter Modes based on existing CBC implementations. These
1130 new plugins bring support for AES and Camellia Counter and CCM algorithms
1131 and the AES GCM algorithms for use in IKEv2.
1133 - The new pkcs11 plugin brings full Smartcard support to the IKEv2 daemon and
1134 the pki utility using one or more PKCS#11 libraries. It currently supports
1135 RSA private and public key operations and loads X.509 certificates from
1138 - Implemented a general purpose TLS stack based on crypto and credential
1139 primitives of libstrongswan. libtls supports TLS versions 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2,
1140 ECDHE-ECDSA/RSA, DHE-RSA and RSA key exchange algorithms and RSA/ECDSA based
1141 client authentication.
1143 - Based on libtls, the eap-tls plugin brings certificate based EAP
1144 authentication for client and server. It is compatible to Windows 7 IKEv2
1145 Smartcard authentication and the OpenSSL based FreeRADIUS EAP-TLS backend.
1147 - Implemented the TNCCS 1.1 Trusted Network Connect protocol using the
1148 libtnc library on the strongSwan client and server side via the tnccs_11
1149 plugin and optionally connecting to a TNC@FHH-enhanced FreeRADIUS AAA server.
1150 Depending on the resulting TNC Recommendation, strongSwan clients are granted
1151 access to a network behind a strongSwan gateway (allow), are put into a
1152 remediation zone (isolate) or are blocked (none), respectively. Any number
1153 of Integrity Measurement Collector/Verifier pairs can be attached
1154 via the tnc-imc and tnc-imv charon plugins.
1156 - The IKEv1 daemon pluto now uses the same kernel interfaces as the IKEv2
1157 daemon charon. As a result of this, pluto now supports xfrm marks which
1158 were introduced in charon with 4.4.1.
1160 - Applets for Maemo 5 (Nokia) allow to easily configure and control IKEv2
1161 based VPN connections with EAP authentication on supported devices.
1163 - The RADIUS plugin eap-radius now supports multiple RADIUS servers for
1164 redundant setups. Servers are selected by a defined priority, server load and
1167 - The simple led plugin controls hardware LEDs through the Linux LED subsystem.
1168 It currently shows activity of the IKE daemon and is a good example how to
1169 implement a simple event listener.
1171 - Improved MOBIKE behavior in several corner cases, for instance, if the
1172 initial responder moves to a different address.
1174 - Fixed left-/rightnexthop option, which was broken since 4.4.0.
1176 - Fixed a bug not releasing a virtual IP address to a pool if the XAUTH
1177 identity was different from the IKE identity.
1179 - Fixed the alignment of ModeConfig messages on 4-byte boundaries in the
1180 case where the attributes are not a multiple of 4 bytes (e.g. Cisco's
1183 - Fixed the interoperability of the socket_raw and socket_default
1186 - Added man page for strongswan.conf
1192 - Support of xfrm marks in IPsec SAs and IPsec policies introduced
1193 with the Linux 2.6.34 kernel. For details see the example scenarios
1194 ikev2/nat-two-rw-mark, ikev2/rw-nat-mark-in-out and ikev2/net2net-psk-dscp.
1196 - The PLUTO_MARK_IN and PLUTO_ESP_ENC environment variables can be used
1197 in a user-specific updown script to set marks on inbound ESP or
1200 - The openssl plugin now supports X.509 certificate and CRL functions.
1202 - OCSP/CRL checking in IKEv2 has been moved to the revocation plugin, enabled
1203 by default. Plase update manual load directives in strongswan.conf.
1205 - RFC3779 ipAddrBlock constraint checking has been moved to the addrblock
1206 plugin, disabled by default. Enable it and update manual load directives
1207 in strongswan.conf, if required.
1209 - The pki utility supports CRL generation using the --signcrl command.
1211 - The ipsec pki --self, --issue and --req commands now support output in
1212 PEM format using the --outform pem option.
1214 - The major refactoring of the IKEv1 Mode Config functionality now allows
1215 the transport and handling of any Mode Config attribute.
1217 - The RADIUS proxy plugin eap-radius now supports multiple servers. Configured
1218 servers are chosen randomly, with the option to prefer a specific server.
1219 Non-responding servers are degraded by the selection process.
1221 - The ipsec pool tool manages arbitrary configuration attributes stored
1222 in an SQL database. ipsec pool --help gives the details.
1224 - The new eap-simaka-sql plugin acts as a backend for EAP-SIM and EAP-AKA,
1225 reading triplets/quintuplets from an SQL database.
1227 - The High Availability plugin now supports a HA enabled in-memory address
1228 pool and Node reintegration without IKE_SA rekeying. The latter allows
1229 clients without IKE_SA rekeying support to keep connected during
1230 reintegration. Additionally, many other issues have been fixed in the ha
1233 - Fixed a potential remote code execution vulnerability resulting from
1234 the misuse of snprintf(). The vulnerability is exploitable by
1235 unauthenticated users.
1241 - The IKEv2 High Availability plugin has been integrated. It provides
1242 load sharing and failover capabilities in a cluster of currently two nodes,
1243 based on an extend ClusterIP kernel module. More information is available at
1244 http://wiki.strongswan.org/projects/strongswan/wiki/HighAvailability.
1245 The development of the High Availability functionality was sponsored by
1246 secunet Security Networks AG.
1248 - Added IKEv1 and IKEv2 configuration support for the AES-GMAC
1249 authentication-only ESP cipher. Our aes_gmac kernel patch or a Linux
1250 2.6.34 kernel is required to make AES-GMAC available via the XFRM
1253 - Added support for Diffie-Hellman groups 22, 23 and 24 to the gmp, gcrypt
1254 and openssl plugins, usable by both pluto and charon. The new proposal
1255 keywords are modp1024s160, modp2048s224 and modp2048s256. Thanks to Joy Latten
1256 from IBM for his contribution.
1258 - The IKEv1 pluto daemon supports RAM-based virtual IP pools using
1259 the rightsourceip directive with a subnet from which addresses
1262 - The ipsec pki --gen and --pub commands now allow the output of
1263 private and public keys in PEM format using the --outform pem
1264 command line option.
1266 - The new DHCP plugin queries virtual IP addresses for clients from a DHCP
1267 server using broadcasts, or a defined server using the
1268 charon.plugins.dhcp.server strongswan.conf option. DNS/WINS server information
1269 is additionally served to clients if the DHCP server provides such
1270 information. The plugin is used in ipsec.conf configurations having
1271 rightsourceip set to %dhcp.
1273 - A new plugin called farp fakes ARP responses for virtual IP addresses
1274 handed out to clients from the IKEv2 daemon charon. The plugin lets a
1275 road-warrior act as a client on the local LAN if it uses a virtual IP
1276 from the responders subnet, e.g. acquired using the DHCP plugin.
1278 - The existing IKEv2 socket implementations have been migrated to the
1279 socket-default and the socket-raw plugins. The new socket-dynamic plugin
1280 binds sockets dynamically to ports configured via the left-/rightikeport
1281 ipsec.conf connection parameters.
1283 - The android charon plugin stores received DNS server information as "net.dns"
1284 system properties, as used by the Android platform.
1290 - The IKEv2 daemon supports RFC 3779 IP address block constraints
1291 carried as a critical X.509v3 extension in the peer certificate.
1293 - The ipsec pool --add|del dns|nbns command manages DNS and NBNS name
1294 server entries that are sent via the IKEv1 Mode Config or IKEv2
1295 Configuration Payload to remote clients.
1297 - The Camellia cipher can be used as an IKEv1 encryption algorithm.
1299 - The IKEv1 and IKEV2 daemons now check certificate path length constraints.
1301 - The new ipsec.conf conn option "inactivity" closes a CHILD_SA if no traffic
1302 was sent or received within the given interval. To close the complete IKE_SA
1303 if its only CHILD_SA was inactive, set the global strongswan.conf option
1304 "charon.inactivity_close_ike" to yes.
1306 - More detailed IKEv2 EAP payload information in debug output
1308 - IKEv2 EAP-SIM and EAP-AKA share joint libsimaka library
1310 - Added required userland changes for proper SHA256 and SHA384/512 in ESP that
1311 will be introduced with Linux 2.6.33. The "sha256"/"sha2_256" keyword now
1312 configures the kernel with 128 bit truncation, not the non-standard 96
1313 bit truncation used by previous releases. To use the old 96 bit truncation
1314 scheme, the new "sha256_96" proposal keyword has been introduced.
1316 - Fixed IPComp in tunnel mode, stripping out the duplicated outer header. This
1317 change makes IPcomp tunnel mode connections incompatible with previous
1318 releases; disable compression on such tunnels.
1320 - Fixed BEET mode connections on recent kernels by installing SAs with
1321 appropriate traffic selectors, based on a patch by Michael Rossberg.
1323 - Using extensions (such as BEET mode) and crypto algorithms (such as twofish,
1324 serpent, sha256_96) allocated in the private use space now require that we
1325 know its meaning, i.e. we are talking to strongSwan. Use the new
1326 "charon.send_vendor_id" option in strongswan.conf to let the remote peer know
1329 - Experimental support for draft-eronen-ipsec-ikev2-eap-auth, where the
1330 responder omits public key authentication in favor of a mutual authentication
1331 method. To enable EAP-only authentication, set rightauth=eap on the responder
1332 to rely only on the MSK constructed AUTH payload. This not-yet standardized
1333 extension requires the strongSwan vendor ID introduced above.
1335 - The IKEv1 daemon ignores the Juniper SRX notification type 40001, thus
1336 allowing interoperability.
1342 - The IKEv1 pluto daemon can now use SQL-based address pools to deal out
1343 virtual IP addresses as a Mode Config server. The pool capability has been
1344 migrated from charon's sql plugin to a new attr-sql plugin which is loaded
1345 by libstrongswan and which can be used by both daemons either with a SQLite
1346 or MySQL database and the corresponding plugin.
1348 - Plugin names have been streamlined: EAP plugins now have a dash after eap
1349 (e.g. eap-sim), as it is used with the --enable-eap-sim ./configure option.
1350 Plugin configuration sections in strongswan.conf now use the same name as the
1351 plugin itself (i.e. with a dash). Make sure to update "load" directives and
1352 the affected plugin sections in existing strongswan.conf files.
1354 - The private/public key parsing and encoding has been split up into
1355 separate pkcs1, pgp, pem and dnskey plugins. The public key implementation
1356 plugins gmp, gcrypt and openssl can all make use of them.
1358 - The EAP-AKA plugin can use different backends for USIM/quintuplet
1359 calculations, very similar to the EAP-SIM plugin. The existing 3GPP2 software
1360 implementation has been migrated to a separate plugin.
1362 - The IKEv2 daemon charon gained basic PGP support. It can use locally installed
1363 peer certificates and can issue signatures based on RSA private keys.
1365 - The new 'ipsec pki' tool provides a set of commands to maintain a public
1366 key infrastructure. It currently supports operations to create RSA and ECDSA
1367 private/public keys, calculate fingerprints and issue or verify certificates.
1369 - Charon uses a monotonic time source for statistics and job queueing, behaving
1370 correctly if the system time changes (e.g. when using NTP).
1372 - In addition to time based rekeying, charon supports IPsec SA lifetimes based
1373 on processed volume or number of packets. They new ipsec.conf paramaters
1374 'lifetime' (an alias to 'keylife'), 'lifebytes' and 'lifepackets' handle
1375 SA timeouts, while the parameters 'margintime' (an alias to rekeymargin),
1376 'marginbytes' and 'marginpackets' trigger the rekeying before a SA expires.
1377 The existing parameter 'rekeyfuzz' affects all margins.
1379 - If no CA/Gateway certificate is specified in the NetworkManager plugin,
1380 charon uses a set of trusted root certificates preinstalled by distributions.
1381 The directory containing CA certificates can be specified using the
1382 --with-nm-ca-dir=path configure option.
1384 - Fixed the encoding of the Email relative distinguished name in left|rightid
1387 - Fixed the broken parsing of PKCS#7 wrapped certificates by the pluto daemon.
1389 - Fixed smartcard-based authentication in the pluto daemon which was broken by
1390 the ECDSA support introduced with the 4.3.2 release.
1392 - A patch contributed by Heiko Hund fixes mixed IPv6 in IPv4 and vice versa
1393 tunnels established with the IKEv1 pluto daemon.
1395 - The pluto daemon now uses the libstrongswan x509 plugin for certificates and
1396 CRls and the struct id type was replaced by identification_t used by charon
1397 and the libstrongswan library.
1403 - IKEv2 charon daemon ported to FreeBSD and Mac OS X. Installation details can
1404 be found on wiki.strongswan.org.
1406 - ipsec statusall shows the number of bytes transmitted and received over
1407 ESP connections configured by the IKEv2 charon daemon.
1409 - The IKEv2 charon daemon supports include files in ipsec.secrets.
1415 - The configuration option --enable-integrity-test plus the strongswan.conf
1416 option libstrongswan.integrity_test = yes activate integrity tests
1417 of the IKE daemons charon and pluto, libstrongswan and all loaded
1418 plugins. Thus dynamic library misconfigurations and non-malicious file
1419 manipulations can be reliably detected.
1421 - The new default setting libstrongswan.ecp_x_coordinate_only=yes allows
1422 IKEv1 interoperability with MS Windows using the ECP DH groups 19 and 20.
1424 - The IKEv1 pluto daemon now supports the AES-CCM and AES-GCM ESP
1425 authenticated encryption algorithms.
1427 - The IKEv1 pluto daemon now supports V4 OpenPGP keys.
1429 - The RDN parser vulnerability discovered by Orange Labs research team
1430 was not completely fixed in version 4.3.2. Some more modifications
1431 had to be applied to the asn1_length() function to make it robust.
1437 - The new gcrypt plugin provides symmetric cipher, hasher, RNG, Diffie-Hellman
1438 and RSA crypto primitives using the LGPL licensed GNU gcrypt library.
1440 - libstrongswan features an integrated crypto selftest framework for registered
1441 algorithms. The test-vector plugin provides a first set of test vectors and
1442 allows pluto and charon to rely on tested crypto algorithms.
1444 - pluto can now use all libstrongswan plugins with the exception of x509 and xcbc.
1445 Thanks to the openssl plugin, the ECP Diffie-Hellman groups 19, 20, 21, 25, and
1446 26 as well as ECDSA-256, ECDSA-384, and ECDSA-521 authentication can be used
1449 - Applying their fuzzing tool, the Orange Labs vulnerability research team found
1450 another two DoS vulnerabilities, one in the rather old ASN.1 parser of Relative
1451 Distinguished Names (RDNs) and a second one in the conversion of ASN.1 UTCTIME
1452 and GENERALIZEDTIME strings to a time_t value.
1458 - The nm plugin now passes DNS/NBNS server information to NetworkManager,
1459 allowing a gateway administrator to set DNS/NBNS configuration on clients
1462 - The nm plugin also accepts CA certificates for gateway authentication. If
1463 a CA certificate is configured, strongSwan uses the entered gateway address
1464 as its idenitity, requiring the gateways certificate to contain the same as
1465 subjectAltName. This allows a gateway administrator to deploy the same
1466 certificates to Windows 7 and NetworkManager clients.
1468 - The command ipsec purgeike deletes IKEv2 SAs that don't have a CHILD SA.
1469 The command ipsec down <conn>{n} deletes CHILD SA instance n of connection
1470 <conn> whereas ipsec down <conn>{*} deletes all CHILD SA instances.
1471 The command ipsec down <conn>[n] deletes IKE SA instance n of connection
1472 <conn> plus dependent CHILD SAs whereas ipsec down <conn>[*] deletes all
1473 IKE SA instances of connection <conn>.
1475 - Fixed a regression introduced in 4.3.0 where EAP authentication calculated
1476 the AUTH payload incorrectly. Further, the EAP-MSCHAPv2 MSK key derivation
1477 has been updated to be compatible with the Windows 7 Release Candidate.
1479 - Refactored installation of triggering policies. Routed policies are handled
1480 outside of IKE_SAs to keep them installed in any case. A tunnel gets
1481 established only once, even if initiation is delayed due network outages.
1483 - Improved the handling of multiple acquire signals triggered by the kernel.
1485 - Fixed two DoS vulnerabilities in the charon daemon that were discovered by
1486 fuzzing techniques: 1) Sending a malformed IKE_SA_INIT request leaved an
1487 incomplete state which caused a null pointer dereference if a subsequent
1488 CREATE_CHILD_SA request was sent. 2) Sending an IKE_AUTH request with either
1489 a missing TSi or TSr payload caused a null pointer derefence because the
1490 checks for TSi and TSr were interchanged. The IKEv2 fuzzer used was
1491 developed by the Orange Labs vulnerability research team. The tool was
1492 initially written by Gabriel Campana and is now maintained by Laurent Butti.
1494 - Added support for AES counter mode in ESP in IKEv2 using the proposal
1495 keywords aes128ctr, aes192ctr and aes256ctr.
1497 - Further progress in refactoring pluto: Use of the curl and ldap plugins
1498 for fetching crls and OCSP. Use of the random plugin to get keying material
1499 from /dev/random or /dev/urandom. Use of the openssl plugin as an alternative
1500 to the aes, des, sha1, sha2, and md5 plugins. The blowfish, twofish, and
1501 serpent encryption plugins are now optional and are not enabled by default.
1507 - Support for the IKEv2 Multiple Authentication Exchanges extension (RFC4739).
1508 Initiators and responders can use several authentication rounds (e.g. RSA
1509 followed by EAP) to authenticate. The new ipsec.conf leftauth/rightauth and
1510 leftauth2/rightauth2 parameters define own authentication rounds or setup
1511 constraints for the remote peer. See the ipsec.conf man page for more detials.
1513 - If glibc printf hooks (register_printf_function) are not available,
1514 strongSwan can use the vstr string library to run on non-glibc systems.
1516 - The IKEv2 charon daemon can now configure the ESP CAMELLIA-CBC cipher
1517 (esp=camellia128|192|256).
1519 - Refactored the pluto and scepclient code to use basic functions (memory
1520 allocation, leak detective, chunk handling, printf_hooks, strongswan.conf
1521 attributes, ASN.1 parser, etc.) from the libstrongswan library.
1523 - Up to two DNS and WINS servers to be sent via IKEv1 ModeConfig can be
1524 configured in the pluto section of strongswan.conf.
1530 - The new server-side EAP RADIUS plugin (--enable-eap-radius)
1531 relays EAP messages to and from a RADIUS server. Successfully
1532 tested with with a freeradius server using EAP-MD5 and EAP-SIM.
1534 - A vulnerability in the Dead Peer Detection (RFC 3706) code was found by
1535 Gerd v. Egidy <gerd.von.egidy@intra2net.com> of Intra2net AG affecting
1536 all Openswan and strongSwan releases. A malicious (or expired ISAKMP)
1537 R_U_THERE or R_U_THERE_ACK Dead Peer Detection packet can cause the
1538 pluto IKE daemon to crash and restart. No authentication or encryption
1539 is required to trigger this bug. One spoofed UDP packet can cause the
1540 pluto IKE daemon to restart and be unresponsive for a few seconds while
1541 restarting. This DPD null state vulnerability has been officially
1542 registered as CVE-2009-0790 and is fixed by this release.
1544 - ASN.1 to time_t conversion caused a time wrap-around for
1545 dates after Jan 18 03:14:07 UTC 2038 on 32-bit platforms.
1546 As a workaround such dates are set to the maximum representable
1547 time, i.e. Jan 19 03:14:07 UTC 2038.
1549 - Distinguished Names containing wildcards (*) are not sent in the
1550 IDr payload anymore.
1556 - Fixed a use-after-free bug in the DPD timeout section of the
1557 IKEv1 pluto daemon which sporadically caused a segfault.
1559 - Fixed a crash in the IKEv2 charon daemon occurring with
1560 mixed RAM-based and SQL-based virtual IP address pools.
1562 - Fixed ASN.1 parsing of algorithmIdentifier objects where the
1563 parameters field is optional.
1565 - Ported nm plugin to NetworkManager 7.1.
1571 - Support of the EAP-MSCHAPv2 protocol enabled by the option
1572 --enable-eap-mschapv2. Requires the MD4 hash algorithm enabled
1573 either by --enable-md4 or --enable-openssl.
1575 - Assignment of up to two DNS and up to two WINS servers to peers via
1576 the IKEv2 Configuration Payload (CP). The IPv4 or IPv6 nameserver
1577 addresses are defined in strongswan.conf.
1579 - The strongSwan applet for the Gnome NetworkManager is now built and
1580 distributed as a separate tarball under the name NetworkManager-strongswan.
1586 - Fixed ESP NULL encryption broken by the refactoring of keymat.c.
1587 Also introduced proper initialization and disposal of keying material.
1589 - Fixed the missing listing of connection definitions in ipsec statusall
1590 broken by an unfortunate local variable overload.
1596 - Several performance improvements to handle thousands of tunnels with almost
1597 linear upscaling. All relevant data structures have been replaced by faster
1598 counterparts with better lookup times.
1600 - Better parallelization to run charon on multiple cores. Due to improved
1601 ressource locking and other optimizations the daemon can take full
1602 advantage of 16 or even more cores.
1604 - The load-tester plugin can use a NULL Diffie-Hellman group and simulate
1605 unique identities and certificates by signing peer certificates using a CA
1608 - The redesigned stroke in-memory IP pool handles leases. The "ipsec leases"
1609 command queries assigned leases.
1611 - Added support for smartcards in charon by using the ENGINE API provided by
1612 OpenSSL, based on patches by Michael Roßberg.
1614 - The Padlock plugin supports the hardware RNG found on VIA CPUs to provide a
1615 reliable source of randomness.
1620 - Flexible configuration of logging subsystem allowing to log to multiple
1621 syslog facilities or to files using fine-grained log levels for each target.
1623 - Load testing plugin to do stress testing of the IKEv2 daemon against self
1624 or another host. Found and fixed issues during tests in the multi-threaded
1625 use of the OpenSSL plugin.
1627 - Added profiling code to synchronization primitives to find bottlenecks if
1628 running on multiple cores. Found and fixed an issue where parts of the
1629 Diffie-Hellman calculation acquired an exclusive lock. This greatly improves
1630 parallelization to multiple cores.
1632 - updown script invocation has been separated into a plugin of its own to
1633 further slim down the daemon core.
1635 - Separated IKE_SA/CHILD_SA key derivation process into a closed system,
1636 allowing future implementations to use a secured environment in e.g. kernel
1639 - The kernel interface of charon has been modularized. XFRM NETLINK (default)
1640 and PFKEY (--enable-kernel-pfkey) interface plugins for the native IPsec
1641 stack of the Linux 2.6 kernel as well as a PFKEY interface for the KLIPS
1642 IPsec stack (--enable-kernel-klips) are provided.
1644 - Basic Mobile IPv6 support has been introduced, securing Binding Update
1645 messages as well as tunneled traffic between Mobile Node and Home Agent.
1646 The installpolicy=no option allows peaceful cooperation with a dominant
1647 mip6d daemon and the new type=transport_proxy implements the special MIPv6
1648 IPsec transport proxy mode where the IKEv2 daemon uses the Care-of-Address
1649 but the IPsec SA is set up for the Home Address.
1651 - Implemented migration of Mobile IPv6 connections using the KMADDRESS
1652 field contained in XFRM_MSG_MIGRATE messages sent by the mip6d daemon
1653 via the Linux 2.6.28 (or appropriately patched) kernel.
1659 - IKEv2 charon daemon supports authentication based on raw public keys
1660 stored in the SQL database backend. The ipsec listpubkeys command
1661 lists the available raw public keys via the stroke interface.
1663 - Several MOBIKE improvements: Detect changes in NAT mappings in DPD exchanges,
1664 handle events if kernel detects NAT mapping changes in UDP-encapsulated
1665 ESP packets (requires kernel patch), reuse old addesses in MOBIKE updates as
1666 long as possible and other fixes.
1668 - Fixed a bug in addr_in_subnet() which caused insertion of wrong source
1669 routes for destination subnets having netwmasks not being a multiple of 8 bits.
1670 Thanks go to Wolfgang Steudel, TU Ilmenau for reporting this bug.
1676 - Fixed a Denial-of-Service vulnerability where an IKE_SA_INIT message with
1677 a KE payload containing zeroes only can cause a crash of the IKEv2 charon
1678 daemon due to a NULL pointer returned by the mpz_export() function of the
1679 GNU Multiprecision Library (GMP). Thanks go to Mu Dynamics Research Labs
1680 for making us aware of this problem.
1682 - The new agent plugin provides a private key implementation on top of an
1685 - The NetworkManager plugin has been extended to support certificate client
1686 authentication using RSA keys loaded from a file or using ssh-agent.
1688 - Daemon capability dropping has been ported to libcap and must be enabled
1689 explicitly --with-capabilities=libcap. Future version will support the
1690 newer libcap2 library.
1692 - ipsec listalgs lists the IKEv2 cryptografic algorithms registered with the
1693 charon keying daemon.
1699 - A NetworkManager plugin allows GUI-based configuration of road-warrior
1700 clients in a simple way. It features X509 based gateway authentication
1701 and EAP client authentication, tunnel setup/teardown and storing passwords
1702 in the Gnome Keyring.
1704 - A new EAP-GTC plugin implements draft-sheffer-ikev2-gtc-00.txt and allows
1705 username/password authentication against any PAM service on the gateway.
1706 The new EAP method interacts nicely with the NetworkManager plugin and allows
1707 client authentication against e.g. LDAP.
1709 - Improved support for the EAP-Identity method. The new ipsec.conf eap_identity
1710 parameter defines an additional identity to pass to the server in EAP
1713 - The "ipsec statusall" command now lists CA restrictions, EAP
1714 authentication types and EAP identities.
1716 - Fixed two multithreading deadlocks occurring when starting up
1717 several hundred tunnels concurrently.
1719 - Fixed the --enable-integrity-test configure option which
1720 computes a SHA-1 checksum over the libstrongswan library.
1726 - Consistent logging of IKE and CHILD SAs at the audit (AUD) level.
1728 - Improved the performance of the SQL-based virtual IP address pool
1729 by introducing an additional addresses table. The leases table
1730 storing only history information has become optional and can be
1731 disabled by setting charon.plugins.sql.lease_history = no in
1734 - The XFRM_STATE_AF_UNSPEC flag added to xfrm.h allows IPv4-over-IPv6
1735 and IPv6-over-IPv4 tunnels with the 2.6.26 and later Linux kernels.
1737 - management of different virtual IP pools for different
1738 network interfaces have become possible.
1740 - fixed a bug which prevented the assignment of more than 256
1741 virtual IP addresses from a pool managed by an sql database.
1743 - fixed a bug which did not delete own IPCOMP SAs in the kernel.
1749 - Added statistics functions to ipsec pool --status and ipsec pool --leases
1750 and input validation checks to various ipsec pool commands.
1752 - ipsec statusall now lists all loaded charon plugins and displays
1753 the negotiated IKEv2 cipher suite proposals.
1755 - The openssl plugin supports the elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman groups
1756 19, 20, 21, 25, and 26.
1758 - The openssl plugin supports ECDSA authentication using elliptic curve
1761 - Fixed a bug in stroke which caused multiple charon threads to close
1762 the file descriptors during packet transfers over the stroke socket.
1764 - ESP sequence numbers are now migrated in IPsec SA updates handled by
1765 MOBIKE. Works only with Linux kernels >= 2.6.17.
1771 - Fixed the strongswan.conf path configuration problem that occurred when
1772 --sysconfig was not set explicitly in ./configure.
1774 - Fixed a number of minor bugs that where discovered during the 4th
1775 IKEv2 interoperability workshop in San Antonio, TX.
1781 - Plugins for libstrongswan and charon can optionally be loaded according
1782 to a configuration in strongswan.conf. Most components provide a
1783 "load = " option followed by a space separated list of plugins to load.
1784 This allows e.g. the fallback from a hardware crypto accelerator to
1785 to software-based crypto plugins.
1787 - Charons SQL plugin has been extended by a virtual IP address pool.
1788 Configurations with a rightsourceip=%poolname setting query a SQLite or
1789 MySQL database for leases. The "ipsec pool" command helps in administrating
1790 the pool database. See ipsec pool --help for the available options
1792 - The Authenticated Encryption Algorithms AES-CCM-8/12/16 and AES-GCM-8/12/16
1793 for ESP are now supported starting with the Linux 2.6.25 kernel. The
1794 syntax is e.g. esp=aes128ccm12 or esp=aes256gcm16.
1800 - Support for "Hash and URL" encoded certificate payloads has been implemented
1801 in the IKEv2 daemon charon. Using the "certuribase" option of a CA section
1802 allows to assign a base URL to all certificates issued by the specified CA.
1803 The final URL is then built by concatenating that base and the hex encoded
1804 SHA1 hash of the DER encoded certificate. Note that this feature is disabled
1805 by default and must be enabled using the option "charon.hash_and_url".
1807 - The IKEv2 daemon charon now supports the "uniqueids" option to close multiple
1808 IKE_SAs with the same peer. The option value "keep" prefers existing
1809 connection setups over new ones, where the value "replace" replaces existing
1812 - The crypto factory in libstrongswan additionally supports random number
1813 generators, plugins may provide other sources of randomness. The default
1814 plugin reads raw random data from /dev/(u)random.
1816 - Extended the credential framework by a caching option to allow plugins
1817 persistent caching of fetched credentials. The "cachecrl" option has been
1820 - The new trustchain verification introduced in 4.2.0 has been parallelized.
1821 Threads fetching CRL or OCSP information no longer block other threads.
1823 - A new IKEv2 configuration attribute framework has been introduced allowing
1824 plugins to provide virtual IP addresses, and in the future, other
1825 configuration attribute services (e.g. DNS/WINS servers).
1827 - The stroke plugin has been extended to provide virtual IP addresses from
1828 a pool defined in ipsec.conf. The "rightsourceip" parameter now accepts
1829 address pools in CIDR notation (e.g. 10.1.1.0/24). The parameter also accepts
1830 the value "%poolname", where "poolname" identifies a pool provided by a
1833 - Fixed compilation on uClibc and a couple of other minor bugs.
1835 - Set DPD defaults in ipsec starter to dpd_delay=30s and dpd_timeout=150s.
1837 - The IKEv1 pluto daemon now supports the ESP encryption algorithm CAMELLIA
1838 with key lengths of 128, 192, and 256 bits, as well as the authentication
1839 algorithm AES_XCBC_MAC. Configuration example: esp=camellia192-aesxcbc.
1845 - libstrongswan has been modularized to attach crypto algorithms,
1846 credential implementations (keys, certificates) and fetchers dynamically
1847 through plugins. Existing code has been ported to plugins:
1848 - RSA/Diffie-Hellman implementation using the GNU Multi Precision library
1849 - X509 certificate system supporting CRLs, OCSP and attribute certificates
1850 - Multiple plugins providing crypto algorithms in software
1851 - CURL and OpenLDAP fetcher
1853 - libstrongswan gained a relational database API which uses pluggable database
1854 providers. Plugins for MySQL and SQLite are available.
1856 - The IKEv2 keying daemon charon is more extensible. Generic plugins may provide
1857 connection configuration, credentials and EAP methods or control the daemon.
1858 Existing code has been ported to plugins:
1859 - EAP-AKA, EAP-SIM, EAP-MD5 and EAP-Identity
1860 - stroke configuration, credential and control (compatible to pluto)
1861 - XML bases management protocol to control and query the daemon
1862 The following new plugins are available:
1863 - An experimental SQL configuration, credential and logging plugin on
1864 top of either MySQL or SQLite
1865 - A unit testing plugin to run tests at daemon startup
1867 - The authentication and credential framework in charon has been heavily
1868 refactored to support modular credential providers, proper
1869 CERTREQ/CERT payload exchanges and extensible authorization rules.
1871 - The framework of strongSwan Manager has envolved to the web application
1872 framework libfast (FastCGI Application Server w/ Templates) and is usable
1873 by other applications.
1879 - IKE rekeying in NAT situations did not inherit the NAT conditions
1880 to the rekeyed IKE_SA so that the UDP encapsulation was lost with
1881 the next CHILD_SA rekeying.
1883 - Wrong type definition of the next_payload variable in id_payload.c
1884 caused an INVALID_SYNTAX error on PowerPC platforms.
1886 - Implemented IKEv2 EAP-SIM server and client test modules that use
1887 triplets stored in a file. For details on the configuration see
1888 the scenario 'ikev2/rw-eap-sim-rsa'.
1894 - Fixed error in the ordering of the certinfo_t records in the ocsp cache that
1895 caused multiple entries of the same serial number to be created.
1897 - Implementation of a simple EAP-MD5 module which provides CHAP
1898 authentication. This may be interesting in conjunction with certificate
1899 based server authentication, as weak passwords can't be brute forced
1900 (in contradiction to traditional IKEv2 PSK).
1902 - A complete software based implementation of EAP-AKA, using algorithms
1903 specified in 3GPP2 (S.S0055). This implementation does not use an USIM,
1904 but reads the secrets from ipsec.secrets. Make sure to read eap_aka.h
1907 - Support for vendor specific EAP methods using Expanded EAP types. The
1908 interface to EAP modules has been slightly changed, so make sure to
1909 check the changes if you're already rolling your own modules.
1915 - The default _updown script now dynamically inserts and removes ip6tables
1916 firewall rules if leftfirewall=yes is set in IPv6 connections. New IPv6
1917 net-net and roadwarrior (PSK/RSA) scenarios for both IKEv1 and IKEV2 were
1920 - Implemented RFC4478 repeated authentication to force EAP/Virtual-IP clients
1921 to reestablish an IKE_SA within a given timeframe.
1923 - strongSwan Manager supports configuration listing, initiation and termination
1924 of IKE and CHILD_SAs.
1926 - Fixes and improvements to multithreading code.
1928 - IKEv2 plugins have been renamed to libcharon-* to avoid naming conflicts.
1929 Make sure to remove the old plugins in $libexecdir/ipsec, otherwise they get
1936 - Removed recursive pthread mutexes since uClibc doesn't support them.
1942 - In NAT traversal situations and multiple queued Quick Modes,
1943 those pending connections inserted by auto=start after the
1944 port floating from 500 to 4500 were erronously deleted.
1946 - Added a "forceencaps" connection parameter to enforce UDP encapsulation
1947 to surmount restrictive firewalls. NAT detection payloads are faked to
1948 simulate a NAT situation and trick the other peer into NAT mode (IKEv2 only).
1950 - Preview of strongSwan Manager, a web based configuration and monitoring
1951 application. It uses a new XML control interface to query the IKEv2 daemon
1952 (see http://wiki.strongswan.org/wiki/Manager).
1954 - Experimental SQLite configuration backend which will provide the configuration
1955 interface for strongSwan Manager in future releases.
1957 - Further improvements to MOBIKE support.
1963 - Since some third party IKEv2 implementations run into
1964 problems with strongSwan announcing MOBIKE capability per
1965 default, MOBIKE can be disabled on a per-connection-basis
1966 using the mobike=no option. Whereas mobike=no disables the
1967 sending of the MOBIKE_SUPPORTED notification and the floating
1968 to UDP port 4500 with the IKE_AUTH request even if no NAT
1969 situation has been detected, strongSwan will still support
1970 MOBIKE acting as a responder.
1972 - the default ipsec routing table plus its corresponding priority
1973 used for inserting source routes has been changed from 100 to 220.
1974 It can be configured using the --with-ipsec-routing-table and
1975 --with-ipsec-routing-table-prio options.
1977 - the --enable-integrity-test configure option tests the
1978 integrity of the libstrongswan crypto code during the charon
1981 - the --disable-xauth-vid configure option disables the sending
1982 of the XAUTH vendor ID. This can be used as a workaround when
1983 interoperating with some Windows VPN clients that get into
1984 trouble upon reception of an XAUTH VID without eXtended
1985 AUTHentication having been configured.
1987 - ipsec stroke now supports the rereadsecrets, rereadaacerts,
1988 rereadacerts, and listacerts options.
1994 - If a DNS lookup failure occurs when resolving right=%<FQDN>
1995 or right=<FQDN> combined with rightallowany=yes then the
1996 connection is not updated by ipsec starter thus preventing
1997 the disruption of an active IPsec connection. Only if the DNS
1998 lookup successfully returns with a changed IP address the
1999 corresponding connection definition is updated.
2001 - Routes installed by the keying daemons are now in a separate
2002 routing table with the ID 100 to avoid conflicts with the main
2003 table. Route lookup for IKEv2 traffic is done in userspace to ignore
2004 routes installed for IPsec, as IKE traffic shouldn't get encapsulated.
2010 - The pluto IKEv1 daemon now exhibits the same behaviour as its
2011 IKEv2 companion charon by inserting an explicit route via the
2012 _updown script only if a sourceip exists. This is admissible
2013 since routing through the IPsec tunnel is handled automatically
2014 by NETKEY's IPsec policies. As a consequence the left|rightnexthop
2015 parameter is not required any more.
2017 - The new IKEv1 parameter right|leftallowany parameters helps to handle
2018 the case where both peers possess dynamic IP addresses that are
2019 usually resolved using DynDNS or a similar service. The configuration
2024 can be used by the initiator to start up a connection to a peer
2025 by resolving peer.foo.bar into the currently allocated IP address.
2026 Thanks to the rightallowany flag the connection behaves later on
2031 so that the peer can rekey the connection as an initiator when his
2032 IP address changes. An alternative notation is
2036 which will implicitly set rightallowany=yes.
2038 - ipsec starter now fails more gracefully in the presence of parsing
2039 errors. Flawed ca and conn section are discarded and pluto is started
2040 if non-fatal errors only were encountered. If right=%peer.foo.bar
2041 cannot be resolved by DNS then right=%any will be used so that passive
2042 connections as a responder are still possible.
2044 - The new pkcs11initargs parameter that can be placed in the
2045 setup config section of /etc/ipsec.conf allows the definition
2046 of an argument string that is used with the PKCS#11 C_Initialize()
2047 function. This non-standard feature is required by the NSS softoken
2048 library. This patch was contributed by Robert Varga.
2050 - Fixed a bug in ipsec starter introduced by strongswan-2.8.5
2051 which caused a segmentation fault in the presence of unknown
2052 or misspelt keywords in ipsec.conf. This bug fix was contributed
2055 - Partial support for MOBIKE in IKEv2. The initiator acts on interface/
2056 address configuration changes and updates IKE and IPsec SAs dynamically.
2062 - IKEv2 peer configuration selection now can be based on a given
2063 certification authority using the rightca= statement.
2065 - IKEv2 authentication based on RSA signatures now can handle multiple
2066 certificates issued for a given peer ID. This allows a smooth transition
2067 in the case of a peer certificate renewal.
2069 - IKEv2: Support for requesting a specific virtual IP using leftsourceip on the
2070 client and returning requested virtual IPs using rightsourceip=%config
2071 on the server. If the server does not support configuration payloads, the
2072 client enforces its leftsourceip parameter.
2074 - The ./configure options --with-uid/--with-gid allow pluto and charon
2075 to drop their privileges to a minimum and change to an other UID/GID. This
2076 improves the systems security, as a possible intruder may only get the
2077 CAP_NET_ADMIN capability.
2079 - Further modularization of charon: Pluggable control interface and
2080 configuration backend modules provide extensibility. The control interface
2081 for stroke is included, and further interfaces using DBUS (NetworkManager)
2082 or XML are on the way. A backend for storing configurations in the daemon
2083 is provided and more advanced backends (using e.g. a database) are trivial
2086 - Fixed a compilation failure in libfreeswan occurring with Linux kernel
2093 - Support for an additional Diffie-Hellman exchange when creating/rekeying
2094 a CHILD_SA in IKEv2 (PFS). PFS is enabled when the proposal contains a
2095 DH group (e.g. "esp=aes128-sha1-modp1536"). Further, DH group negotiation
2096 is implemented properly for rekeying.
2098 - Support for the AES-XCBC-96 MAC algorithm for IPsec SAs when using IKEv2
2099 (requires linux >= 2.6.20). It is enabled using e.g. "esp=aes256-aesxcbc".
2101 - Working IPv4-in-IPv6 and IPv6-in-IPv4 tunnels for linux >= 2.6.21.
2103 - Added support for EAP modules which do not establish an MSK.
2105 - Removed the dependencies from the /usr/include/linux/ headers by
2106 including xfrm.h, ipsec.h, and pfkeyv2.h in the distribution.
2108 - crlNumber is now listed by ipsec listcrls
2110 - The xauth_modules.verify_secret() function now passes the
2117 - Server side cookie support. If to may IKE_SAs are in CONNECTING state,
2118 cookies are enabled and protect against DoS attacks with faked source
2119 addresses. Number of IKE_SAs in CONNECTING state is also limited per
2120 peer address to avoid resource exhaustion. IKE_SA_INIT messages are
2121 compared to properly detect retransmissions and incoming retransmits are
2122 detected even if the IKE_SA is blocked (e.g. doing OCSP fetches).
2124 - The IKEv2 daemon charon now supports dynamic http- and ldap-based CRL
2125 fetching enabled by crlcheckinterval > 0 and caching fetched CRLs
2126 enabled by cachecrls=yes.
2128 - Added the configuration options --enable-nat-transport which enables
2129 the potentially insecure NAT traversal for IPsec transport mode and
2130 --disable-vendor-id which disables the sending of the strongSwan
2133 - Fixed a long-standing bug in the pluto IKEv1 daemon which caused
2134 a segmentation fault if a malformed payload was detected in the
2135 IKE MR2 message and pluto tried to send an encrypted notification
2138 - Added the NATT_IETF_02_N Vendor ID in order to support IKEv1 connections
2139 with Windows 2003 Server which uses a wrong VID hash.
2145 - Support of SHA2_384 hash function for protecting IKEv1
2146 negotiations and support of SHA2 signatures in X.509 certificates.
2148 - Fixed a serious bug in the computation of the SHA2-512 HMAC
2149 function. Introduced automatic self-test of all IKEv1 hash
2150 and hmac functions during pluto startup. Failure of a self-test
2151 currently issues a warning only but does not exit pluto [yet].
2153 - Support for SHA2-256/384/512 PRF and HMAC functions in IKEv2.
2155 - Full support of CA information sections. ipsec listcainfos
2156 now shows all collected crlDistributionPoints and OCSP
2159 - Support of the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) for IKEv2.
2160 This feature requires the HTTP fetching capabilities of the libcurl
2161 library which must be enabled by setting the --enable-http configure
2164 - Refactored core of the IKEv2 message processing code, allowing better
2165 code reuse and separation.
2167 - Virtual IP support in IKEv2 using INTERNAL_IP4/6_ADDRESS configuration
2168 payload. Additionally, the INTERNAL_IP4/6_DNS attribute is interpreted
2169 by the requestor and installed in a resolv.conf file.
2171 - The IKEv2 daemon charon installs a route for each IPsec policy to use
2172 the correct source address even if an application does not explicitly
2175 - Integrated the EAP framework into charon which loads pluggable EAP library
2176 modules. The ipsec.conf parameter authby=eap initiates EAP authentication
2177 on the client side, while the "eap" parameter on the server side defines
2178 the EAP method to use for client authentication.
2179 A generic client side EAP-Identity module and an EAP-SIM authentication
2180 module using a third party card reader implementation are included.
2182 - Added client side support for cookies.
2184 - Integrated the fixes done at the IKEv2 interoperability bakeoff, including
2185 strict payload order, correct INVALID_KE_PAYLOAD rejection and other minor
2186 fixes to enhance interoperability with other implementations.
2192 - strongSwan now interoperates with the NCP Secure Entry Client,
2193 the Shrew Soft VPN Client, and the Cisco VPN client, doing both
2194 XAUTH and Mode Config.
2196 - UNITY attributes are now recognized and UNITY_BANNER is set
2197 to a default string.
2203 - IKEv1: Support for extended authentication (XAUTH) in combination
2204 with ISAKMP Main Mode RSA or PSK authentication. Both client and
2205 server side were implemented. Handling of user credentials can
2206 be done by a run-time loadable XAUTH module. By default user
2207 credentials are stored in ipsec.secrets.
2209 - IKEv2: Support for reauthentication when rekeying
2211 - IKEv2: Support for transport mode
2213 - fixed a lot of bugs related to byte order
2215 - various other bugfixes
2221 - IKEv1: Implementation of ModeConfig push mode via the new connection
2222 keyword modeconfig=push allows interoperability with Cisco VPN gateways.
2224 - IKEv1: The command ipsec statusall now shows "DPD active" for all
2225 ISAKMP SAs that are under active Dead Peer Detection control.
2227 - IKEv2: Charon's logging and debugging framework has been completely rewritten.
2228 Instead of logger, special printf() functions are used to directly
2229 print objects like hosts (%H) identifications (%D), certificates (%Q),
2230 etc. The number of debugging levels have been reduced to:
2232 0 (audit), 1 (control), 2 (controlmore), 3 (raw), 4 (private)
2234 The debugging levels can either be specified statically in ipsec.conf as
2237 charondebug="lib 1, cfg 3, net 2"
2239 or changed at runtime via stroke as
2241 ipsec stroke loglevel cfg 2
2247 - Implemented full support for IPv6-in-IPv6 tunnels.
2249 - Added configuration options for dead peer detection in IKEv2. dpd_action
2250 types "clear", "hold" and "restart" are supported. The dpd_timeout
2251 value is not used, as the normal retransmission policy applies to
2252 detect dead peers. The dpd_delay parameter enables sending of empty
2253 informational message to detect dead peers in case of inactivity.
2255 - Added support for preshared keys in IKEv2. PSK keys configured in
2256 ipsec.secrets are loaded. The authby parameter specifies the authentication
2257 method to authentificate ourself, the other peer may use PSK or RSA.
2259 - Changed retransmission policy to respect the keyingtries parameter.
2261 - Added private key decryption. PEM keys encrypted with AES-128/192/256
2262 or 3DES are supported.
2264 - Implemented DES/3DES algorithms in libstrongswan. 3DES can be used to
2265 encrypt IKE traffic.
2267 - Implemented SHA-256/384/512 in libstrongswan, allows usage of certificates
2268 signed with such a hash algorithm.
2270 - Added initial support for updown scripts. The actions up-host/client and
2271 down-host/client are executed. The leftfirewall=yes parameter
2272 uses the default updown script to insert dynamic firewall rules, a custom
2273 updown script may be specified with the leftupdown parameter.
2279 - Added support for the auto=route ipsec.conf parameter and the
2280 ipsec route/unroute commands for IKEv2. This allows to set up IKE_SAs and
2281 CHILD_SAs dynamically on demand when traffic is detected by the
2284 - Added support for rekeying IKE_SAs in IKEv2 using the ikelifetime parameter.
2285 As specified in IKEv2, no reauthentication is done (unlike in IKEv1), only
2286 new keys are generated using perfect forward secrecy. An optional flag
2287 which enforces reauthentication will be implemented later.
2289 - "sha" and "sha1" are now treated as synonyms in the ike= and esp=
2290 algorithm configuration statements.
2296 - Full X.509 certificate trust chain verification has been implemented.
2297 End entity certificates can be exchanged via CERT payloads. The current
2298 default is leftsendcert=always, since CERTREQ payloads are not supported
2299 yet. Optional CRLs must be imported locally into /etc/ipsec.d/crls.
2301 - Added support for leftprotoport/rightprotoport parameters in IKEv2. IKEv2
2302 would offer more possibilities for traffic selection, but the Linux kernel
2303 currently does not support it. That's why we stick with these simple
2304 ipsec.conf rules for now.
2306 - Added Dead Peer Detection (DPD) which checks liveliness of remote peer if no
2307 IKE or ESP traffic is received. DPD is currently hardcoded (dpdaction=clear,
2310 - Initial NAT traversal support in IKEv2. Charon includes NAT detection
2311 notify payloads to detect NAT routers between the peers. It switches
2312 to port 4500, uses UDP encapsulated ESP packets, handles peer address
2313 changes gracefully and sends keep alive message periodically.
2315 - Reimplemented IKE_SA state machine for charon, which allows simultaneous
2316 rekeying, more shared code, cleaner design, proper retransmission
2317 and a more extensible code base.
2319 - The mixed PSK/RSA roadwarrior detection capability introduced by the
2320 strongswan-2.7.0 release necessitated the pre-parsing of the IKE proposal
2321 payloads by the responder right before any defined IKE Main Mode state had
2322 been established. Although any form of bad proposal syntax was being correctly
2323 detected by the payload parser, the subsequent error handler didn't check
2324 the state pointer before logging current state information, causing an
2325 immediate crash of the pluto keying daemon due to a NULL pointer.
2331 - Added algorithm selection to charon: New default algorithms for
2332 ike=aes128-sha-modp2048, as both daemons support it. The default
2333 for IPsec SAs is now esp=aes128-sha,3des-md5. charon handles
2334 the ike/esp parameter the same way as pluto. As this syntax does
2335 not allow specification of a pseudo random function, the same
2336 algorithm as for integrity is used (currently sha/md5). Supported
2338 Encryption: aes128, aes192, aes256
2339 Integrity/PRF: md5, sha (using hmac)
2340 DH-Groups: modp768, 1024, 1536, 2048, 4096, 8192
2342 Encryption: aes128, aes192, aes256, 3des, blowfish128,
2343 blowfish192, blowfish256
2344 Integrity: md5, sha1
2345 More IKE encryption algorithms will come after porting libcrypto into
2348 - initial support for rekeying CHILD_SAs using IKEv2. Currently no
2349 perfect forward secrecy is used. The rekeying parameters rekey,
2350 rekeymargin, rekeyfuzz and keylife from ipsec.conf are now supported
2351 when using IKEv2. WARNING: charon currently is unable to handle
2352 simultaneous rekeying. To avoid such a situation, use a large
2353 rekeyfuzz, or even better, set rekey=no on one peer.
2355 - support for host2host, net2net, host2net (roadwarrior) tunnels
2356 using predefined RSA certificates (see uml scenarios for
2357 configuration examples).
2359 - new build environment featuring autotools. Features such
2360 as HTTP, LDAP and smartcard support may be enabled using
2361 the ./configure script. Changing install directories
2362 is possible, too. See ./configure --help for more details.
2364 - better integration of charon with ipsec starter, which allows
2365 (almost) transparent operation with both daemons. charon
2366 handles ipsec commands up, down, status, statusall, listall,
2367 listcerts and allows proper load, reload and delete of connections
2374 - initial support of the IKEv2 protocol. Connections in
2375 ipsec.conf designated by keyexchange=ikev2 are negotiated
2376 by the new IKEv2 charon keying daemon whereas those marked
2377 by keyexchange=ikev1 or the default keyexchange=ike are
2378 handled thy the IKEv1 pluto keying daemon. Currently only
2379 a limited subset of functions are available with IKEv2
2380 (Default AES encryption, authentication based on locally
2381 imported X.509 certificates, unencrypted private RSA keys
2382 in PKCS#1 file format, limited functionality of the ipsec
2389 - the dynamic iptables rules from the _updown_x509 template
2390 for KLIPS and the _updown_policy template for NETKEY have
2391 been merged into the default _updown script. The existing
2392 left|rightfirewall keyword causes the automatic insertion
2393 and deletion of ACCEPT rules for tunneled traffic upon
2394 the successful setup and teardown of an IPsec SA, respectively.
2395 left|rightfirwall can be used with KLIPS under any Linux 2.4
2396 kernel or with NETKEY under a Linux kernel version >= 2.6.16
2397 in conjunction with iptables >= 1.3.5. For NETKEY under a Linux
2398 kernel version < 2.6.16 which does not support IPsec policy
2399 matching yet, please continue to use a copy of the _updown_espmark
2400 template loaded via the left|rightupdown keyword.
2402 - a new left|righthostaccess keyword has been introduced which
2403 can be used in conjunction with left|rightfirewall and the
2404 default _updown script. By default leftfirewall=yes inserts
2405 a bi-directional iptables FORWARD rule for a local client network
2406 with a netmask different from 255.255.255.255 (single host).
2407 This does not allow to access the VPN gateway host via its
2408 internal network interface which is part of the client subnet
2409 because an iptables INPUT and OUTPUT rule would be required.
2410 lefthostaccess=yes will cause this additional ACCEPT rules to
2413 - mixed PSK|RSA roadwarriors are now supported. The ISAKMP proposal
2414 payload is preparsed in order to find out whether the roadwarrior
2415 requests PSK or RSA so that a matching connection candidate can
2422 - the new _updown_policy template allows ipsec policy based
2423 iptables firewall rules. Required are iptables version
2424 >= 1.3.5 and linux kernel >= 2.6.16. This script obsoletes
2425 the _updown_espmark template, so that no INPUT mangle rules
2426 are required any more.
2428 - added support of DPD restart mode
2430 - ipsec starter now allows the use of wildcards in include
2431 statements as e.g. in "include /etc/my_ipsec/*.conf".
2432 Patch courtesy of Matthias Haas.
2434 - the Netscape OID 'employeeNumber' is now recognized and can be
2435 used as a Relative Distinguished Name in certificates.
2441 - /etc/init.d/ipsec or /etc/rc.d/ipsec is now a copy of the ipsec
2442 command and not of ipsec setup any more.
2444 - ipsec starter now supports AH authentication in conjunction with
2445 ESP encryption. AH authentication is configured in ipsec.conf
2446 via the auth=ah parameter.
2448 - The command ipsec scencrypt|scdecrypt <args> is now an alias for
2449 ipsec whack --scencrypt|scdecrypt <args>.
2451 - get_sa_info() now determines for the native netkey IPsec stack
2452 the exact time of the last use of an active eroute. This information
2453 is used by the Dead Peer Detection algorithm and is also displayed by
2454 the ipsec status command.
2460 - running under the native Linux 2.6 IPsec stack, the function
2461 get_sa_info() is called by ipsec auto --status to display the current
2462 number of transmitted bytes per IPsec SA.
2464 - get_sa_info() is also used by the Dead Peer Detection process to detect
2465 recent ESP activity. If ESP traffic was received from the peer within
2466 the last dpd_delay interval then no R_Y_THERE notification must be sent.
2468 - strongSwan now supports the Relative Distinguished Name "unstructuredName"
2469 in ID_DER_ASN1_DN identities. The following notations are possible:
2471 rightid="unstructuredName=John Doe"
2472 rightid="UN=John Doe"
2474 - fixed a long-standing bug which caused PSK-based roadwarrior connections
2475 to segfault in the function id.c:same_id() called by keys.c:get_secret()
2476 if an FQDN, USER_FQDN, or Key ID was defined, as in the following example.
2483 - the ipsec command now supports most ipsec auto commands (e.g. ipsec listall).
2485 - ipsec starter didn't set host_addr and client.addr ports in whack msg.
2487 - in order to guarantee backwards-compatibility with the script-based
2488 auto function (e.g. auto --replace), the ipsec starter scripts stores
2489 the defaultroute information in the temporary file /var/run/ipsec.info.
2491 - The compile-time option USE_XAUTH_VID enables the sending of the XAUTH
2492 Vendor ID which is expected by Cisco PIX 7 boxes that act as IKE Mode Config
2495 - the ipsec starter now also recognizes the parameters authby=never and
2496 type=passthrough|pass|drop|reject.
2502 - ipsec starter now supports the also parameter which allows
2503 a modular structure of the connection definitions. Thus
2504 "ipsec start" is now ready to replace "ipsec setup".
2510 - Mathieu Lafon's popular ipsec starter tool has been added to the
2511 strongSwan distribution. Many thanks go to Stephan Scholz from astaro
2512 for his integration work. ipsec starter is a C program which is going
2513 to replace the various shell and awk starter scripts (setup, _plutoload,
2514 _plutostart, _realsetup, _startklips, _confread, and auto). Since
2515 ipsec.conf is now parsed only once, the starting of multiple tunnels is
2516 accelerated tremedously.
2518 - Added support of %defaultroute to the ipsec starter. If the IP address
2519 changes, a HUP signal to the ipsec starter will automatically
2520 reload pluto's connections.
2522 - moved most compile time configurations from pluto/Makefile to
2523 Makefile.inc by defining the options USE_LIBCURL, USE_LDAP,
2524 USE_SMARTCARD, and USE_NAT_TRAVERSAL_TRANSPORT_MODE.
2526 - removed the ipsec verify and ipsec newhostkey commands
2528 - fixed some 64-bit issues in formatted print statements
2530 - The scepclient functionality implementing the Simple Certificate
2531 Enrollment Protocol (SCEP) is nearly complete but hasn't been
2538 - CA certicates are now automatically loaded from a smartcard
2539 or USB crypto token and appear in the ipsec auto --listcacerts
2546 - when using "ipsec whack --scencrypt <data>" with a PKCS#11
2547 library that does not support the C_Encrypt() Cryptoki
2548 function (e.g. OpenSC), the RSA encryption is done in
2549 software using the public key fetched from the smartcard.
2551 - The scepclient function now allows to define the
2552 validity of a self-signed certificate using the --days,
2553 --startdate, and --enddate options. The default validity
2554 has been changed from one year to five years.
2560 - the config setup parameter pkcs11proxy=yes opens pluto's PKCS#11
2561 interface to other applications for RSA encryption and decryption
2562 via the whack interface. Notation:
2564 ipsec whack --scencrypt <data>
2565 [--inbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
2566 [--outbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
2569 ipsec whack --scdecrypt <data>
2570 [--inbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
2571 [--outbase 16|hex|64|base64|256|text|ascii]
2574 The default setting for inbase and outbase is hex.
2576 The new proxy interface can be used for securing symmetric
2577 encryption keys required by the cryptoloop or dm-crypt
2578 disk encryption schemes, especially in the case when
2579 pkcs11keepstate=yes causes pluto to lock the pkcs11 slot
2582 - if the file /etc/ipsec.secrets is lacking during the startup of
2583 pluto then the root-readable file /etc/ipsec.d/private/myKey.der
2584 containing a 2048 bit RSA private key and a matching self-signed
2585 certificate stored in the file /etc/ipsec.d/certs/selfCert.der
2586 is automatically generated by calling the function
2588 ipsec scepclient --out pkcs1 --out cert-self
2590 scepclient was written by Jan Hutter and Martin Willi, students
2591 at the University of Applied Sciences in Rapperswil, Switzerland.
2597 - the current extension of the PKCS#7 framework introduced
2598 a parsing error in PKCS#7 wrapped X.509 certificates that are
2599 e.g. transmitted by Windows XP when multi-level CAs are used.
2600 the parsing syntax has been fixed.
2602 - added a patch by Gerald Richter which tolerates multiple occurrences
2603 of the ipsec0 interface when using KLIPS.
2609 - with gawk-3.1.4 the word "default2 has become a protected
2610 keyword for use in switch statements and cannot be used any
2611 more in the strongSwan scripts. This problem has been
2612 solved by renaming "default" to "defaults" and "setdefault"
2613 in the scripts _confread and auto, respectively.
2615 - introduced the parameter leftsendcert with the values
2617 always|yes (the default, always send a cert)
2618 ifasked (send the cert only upon a cert request)
2619 never|no (never send a cert, used for raw RSA keys and
2622 - fixed the initialization of the ESP key length to a default of
2623 128 bits in the case that the peer does not send a key length
2624 attribute for AES encryption.
2626 - applied Herbert Xu's uniqueIDs patch
2628 - applied Herbert Xu's CLOEXEC patches
2634 - CRLs can now be cached also in the case when the issuer's
2635 certificate does not contain a subjectKeyIdentifier field.
2636 In that case the subjectKeyIdentifier is computed by pluto as the
2637 160 bit SHA-1 hash of the issuer's public key in compliance
2638 with section 4.2.1.2 of RFC 3280.
2640 - Fixed a bug introduced by strongswan-2.5.1 which eliminated
2641 not only multiple Quick Modes of a given connection but also
2642 multiple connections between two security gateways.
2648 - Under the native IPsec of the Linux 2.6 kernel, a %trap eroute
2649 installed either by setting auto=route in ipsec.conf or by
2650 a connection put into hold, generates an XFRM_AQUIRE event
2651 for each packet that wants to use the not-yet exisiting
2652 tunnel. Up to now each XFRM_AQUIRE event led to an entry in
2653 the Quick Mode queue, causing multiple IPsec SA to be
2654 established in rapid succession. Starting with strongswan-2.5.1
2655 only a single IPsec SA is established per host-pair connection.
2657 - Right after loading the PKCS#11 module, all smartcard slots are
2658 searched for certificates. The result can be viewed using
2661 ipsec auto --listcards
2663 The certificate objects found in the slots are numbered
2664 starting with #1, #2, etc. This position number can be used to address
2665 certificates (leftcert=%smartcard) and keys (: PIN %smartcard)
2666 in ipsec.conf and ipsec.secrets, respectively:
2668 %smartcard (selects object #1)
2669 %smartcard#1 (selects object #1)
2670 %smartcard#3 (selects object #3)
2672 As an alternative the existing retrieval scheme can be used:
2674 %smartcard:45 (selects object with id=45)
2675 %smartcard0 (selects first object in slot 0)
2676 %smartcard4:45 (selects object in slot 4 with id=45)
2678 - Depending on the settings of CKA_SIGN and CKA_DECRYPT
2679 private key flags either C_Sign() or C_Decrypt() is used
2680 to generate a signature.
2682 - The output buffer length parameter siglen in C_Sign()
2683 is now initialized to the actual size of the output
2684 buffer prior to the function call. This fixes the
2685 CKR_BUFFER_TOO_SMALL error that could occur when using
2686 the OpenSC PKCS#11 module.
2688 - Changed the initialization of the PKCS#11 CK_MECHANISM in
2689 C_SignInit() to mech = { CKM_RSA_PKCS, NULL_PTR, 0 }.
2691 - Refactored the RSA public/private key code and transferred it
2692 from keys.c to the new pkcs1.c file as a preparatory step
2693 towards the release of the SCEP client.
2699 - The loading of a PKCS#11 smartcard library module during
2700 runtime does not require OpenSC library functions any more
2701 because the corresponding code has been integrated into
2702 smartcard.c. Also the RSAREF pkcs11 header files have been
2703 included in a newly created pluto/rsaref directory so that
2704 no external include path has to be defined any longer.
2706 - A long-awaited feature has been implemented at last:
2707 The local caching of CRLs fetched via HTTP or LDAP, activated
2708 by the parameter cachecrls=yes in the config setup section
2709 of ipsec.conf. The dynamically fetched CRLs are stored under
2710 a unique file name containing the issuer's subjectKeyID
2711 in /etc/ipsec.d/crls.
2713 - Applied a one-line patch courtesy of Michael Richardson
2714 from the Openswan project which fixes the kernel-oops
2715 in KLIPS when an snmp daemon is running on the same box.
2721 - Eliminated null length CRL distribution point strings.
2723 - Fixed a trust path evaluation bug introduced with 2.4.3
2729 - Improved the joint OCSP / CRL revocation policy.
2730 OCSP responses have precedence over CRL entries.
2732 - Introduced support of CRLv2 reason codes.
2734 - Fixed a bug with key-pad equipped readers which caused
2735 pluto to prompt for the pin via the console when the first
2736 occasion to enter the pin via the key-pad was missed.
2738 - When pluto is built with LDAP_V3 enabled, the library
2739 liblber required by newer versions of openldap is now
2746 - Added the _updown_espmark template which requires all
2747 incoming ESP traffic to be marked with a default mark
2750 - Introduced the pkcs11keepstate parameter in the config setup
2751 section of ipsec.conf. With pkcs11keepstate=yes the PKCS#11
2752 session and login states are kept as long as possible during
2753 the lifetime of pluto. This means that a PIN entry via a key
2754 pad has to be done only once.
2756 - Introduced the pkcs11module parameter in the config setup
2757 section of ipsec.conf which specifies the PKCS#11 module
2758 to be used with smart cards. Example:
2760 pkcs11module=/usr/lib/pkcs11/opensc-pkcs11.lo
2762 - Added support of smartcard readers equipped with a PIN pad.
2764 - Added patch by Jay Pfeifer which detects when netkey
2765 modules have been statically built into the Linux 2.6 kernel.
2767 - Added two patches by Herbert Xu. The first uses ip xfrm
2768 instead of setkey to flush the IPsec policy database. The
2769 second sets the optional flag in inbound IPComp SAs only.
2771 - Applied Ulrich Weber's patch which fixes an interoperability
2772 problem between native IPsec and KLIPS systems caused by
2773 setting the replay window to 32 instead of 0 for ipcomp.
2779 - Fixed a bug which caused an unwanted Mode Config request
2780 to be initiated in the case where "right" was used to denote
2781 the local side in ipsec.conf and "left" the remote side,
2782 contrary to the recommendation that "right" be remote and
2789 - updated Vendor ID to strongSwan-2.4.0
2791 - updated copyright statement to include David Buechi and
2798 - strongSwan now communicates with attached smartcards and
2799 USB crypto tokens via the standardized PKCS #11 interface.
2800 By default the OpenSC library from www.opensc.org is used
2801 but any other PKCS#11 library could be dynamically linked.
2802 strongSwan's PKCS#11 API was implemented by David Buechi
2803 and Michael Meier, both graduates of the Zurich University
2804 of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland.
2806 - When a %trap eroute is triggered by an outgoing IP packet
2807 then the native IPsec stack of the Linux 2.6 kernel [often/
2808 always?] returns an XFRM_ACQUIRE message with an undefined
2809 protocol family field and the connection setup fails.
2810 As a workaround IPv4 (AF_INET) is now assumed.
2812 - the results of the UML test scenarios are now enhanced
2813 with block diagrams of the virtual network topology used
2814 in a particular test.
2820 - fixed IV used to decrypt informational messages.
2821 This bug was introduced with Mode Config functionality.
2823 - fixed NCP Vendor ID.
2825 - undid one of Ulrich Weber's maximum udp size patches
2826 because it caused a segmentation fault with NAT-ed
2829 - added UML scenarios wildcards and attr-cert which
2830 demonstrate the implementation of IPsec policies based
2831 on wildcard parameters contained in Distinguished Names and
2832 on X.509 attribute certificates, respectively.
2838 - Added basic Mode Config functionality
2840 - Added Mathieu Lafon's patch which upgrades the status of
2841 the NAT-Traversal implementation to RFC 3947.
2843 - The _startklips script now also loads the xfrm4_tunnel
2846 - Added Ulrich Weber's netlink replay window size and
2847 maximum udp size patches.
2849 - UML testing now uses the Linux 2.6.10 UML kernel by default.
2855 - Eric Marchionni and Patrik Rayo, both recent graduates from
2856 the Zuercher Hochschule Winterthur in Switzerland, created a
2857 User-Mode-Linux test setup for strongSwan. For more details
2858 please read the INSTALL and README documents in the testing
2861 - Full support of group attributes based on X.509 attribute
2862 certificates. Attribute certificates can be generated
2863 using the openac facility. For more details see
2867 The group attributes can be used in connection definitions
2868 in order to give IPsec access to specific user groups.
2869 This is done with the new parameter left|rightgroups as in
2871 rightgroups="Research, Sales"
2873 giving access to users possessing the group attributes
2874 Research or Sales, only.
2876 - In Quick Mode clients with subnet mask /32 are now
2877 coded as IP_V4_ADDRESS or IP_V6_ADDRESS. This should
2878 fix rekeying problems with the SafeNet/SoftRemote and NCP
2879 Secure Entry Clients.
2881 - Changed the defaults of the ikelifetime and keylife parameters
2882 to 3h and 1h, respectively. The maximum allowable values are
2883 now both set to 24 h.
2885 - Suppressed notification wars between two IPsec peers that
2886 could e.g. be triggered by incorrect ISAKMP encryption.
2888 - Public RSA keys can now have identical IDs if either the
2889 issuing CA or the serial number is different. The serial
2890 number of a certificate is now shown by the command
2892 ipsec auto --listpubkeys
2898 - Added Tuomo Soini's sourceip feature which allows a strongSwan
2899 roadwarrior to use a fixed Virtual IP (see README section 2.6)
2900 and reduces the well-known four tunnel case on VPN gateways to
2901 a single tunnel definition (see README section 2.4).
2903 - Fixed a bug occurring with NAT-Traversal enabled when the responder
2904 suddenly turns initiator and the initiator cannot find a matching
2905 connection because of the floated IKE port 4500.
2907 - Removed misleading ipsec verify command from barf.
2909 - Running under the native IP stack, ipsec --version now shows
2910 the Linux kernel version (courtesy to the Openswan project).
2916 - Introduced the ipsec auto --listalgs monitoring command which lists
2917 all currently registered IKE and ESP algorithms.
2919 - Fixed a bug in the ESP algorithm selection occurring when the strict flag
2920 is set and the first proposed transform does not match.
2922 - Fixed another deadlock in the use of the lock_certs_and_keys() mutex,
2923 occurring when a smartcard is present.
2925 - Prevented that a superseded Phase1 state can trigger a DPD_TIMEOUT event.
2927 - Fixed the printing of the notification names (null)
2929 - Applied another of Herbert Xu's Netlink patches.
2935 - Support of Dead Peer Detection. The connection parameter
2937 dpdaction=clear|hold
2939 activates DPD for the given connection.
2941 - The default Opportunistic Encryption (OE) policy groups are not
2942 automatically included anymore. Those wishing to activate OE can include
2943 the policy group with the following statement in ipsec.conf:
2945 include /etc/ipsec.d/examples/oe.conf
2947 The default for [right|left]rsasigkey is now set to %cert.
2949 - strongSwan now has a Vendor ID of its own which can be activated
2950 using the compile option VENDORID
2952 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch which sets the compression algorithm correctly.
2954 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch fixing an ESPINUDP problem
2956 - Applied Herbert Xu's patch setting source/destination port numbers.
2958 - Reapplied one of Herbert Xu's NAT-Traversal patches which got
2959 lost during the migration from SuperFreeS/WAN.
2961 - Fixed a deadlock in the use of the lock_certs_and_keys() mutex.
2963 - Fixed the unsharing of alg parameters when instantiating group
2970 - Thomas Walpuski made me aware of a potential DoS attack via
2971 a PKCS#7-wrapped certificate bundle which could overwrite valid CA
2972 certificates in Pluto's authority certificate store. This vulnerability
2973 was fixed by establishing trust in CA candidate certificates up to a
2974 trusted root CA prior to insertion into Pluto's chained list.
2976 - replaced the --assign option by the -v option in the auto awk script
2977 in order to make it run with mawk under debian/woody.
2983 - Split of the status information between ipsec auto --status (concise)
2984 and ipsec auto --statusall (verbose). Both commands can be used with
2985 an optional connection selector:
2987 ipsec auto --status[all] <connection_name>
2989 - Added the description of X.509 related features to the ipsec_auto(8)
2992 - Hardened the ASN.1 parser in debug mode, especially the printing
2993 of malformed distinguished names.
2995 - The size of an RSA public key received in a certificate is now restricted to
2997 512 bits <= modulus length <= 8192 bits.
2999 - Fixed the debug mode enumeration.
3005 - Fixed another PKCS#7 vulnerability which could lead to an
3006 endless loop while following the X.509 trust chain.
3012 - Fixed the PKCS#7 vulnerability discovered by Thomas Walpuski
3013 that accepted end certificates having identical issuer and subject
3014 distinguished names in a multi-tier X.509 trust chain.
3020 - Removed all remaining references to ipsec_netlink.h in KLIPS.
3026 - The new "ca" section allows to define the following parameters:
3029 cacert=koolCA.pem # cacert of kool CA
3030 ocspuri=http://ocsp.kool.net:8001 # ocsp server
3031 ldapserver=ldap.kool.net # default ldap server
3032 crluri=http://www.kool.net/kool.crl # crl distribution point
3033 crluri2="ldap:///O=Kool, C= .." # crl distribution point #2
3034 auto=add # add, ignore
3036 The ca definitions can be monitored via the command
3038 ipsec auto --listcainfos
3040 - Fixed cosmetic corruption of /proc filesystem by integrating
3041 D. Hugh Redelmeier's freeswan-2.06 kernel fixes.
3047 - Added support for the 818043 NAT-Traversal update of Microsoft's
3048 Windows 2000/XP IPsec client which sends an ID_FQDN during Quick Mode.
3050 - A symbolic link to libcrypto is now added in the kernel sources
3051 during kernel compilation
3053 - Fixed a couple of 64 bit issues (mostly casts to int).
3054 Thanks to Ken Bantoft who checked my sources on a 64 bit platform.
3056 - Replaced s[n]printf() statements in the kernel by ipsec_snprintf().
3057 Credits go to D. Hugh Redelmeier, Michael Richardson, and Sam Sgro
3058 of the FreeS/WAN team who solved this problem with the 2.4.25 kernel.
3064 - an empty ASN.1 SEQUENCE OF or SET OF object (e.g. a subjectAltName
3065 certificate extension which contains no generalName item) can cause
3066 a pluto crash. This bug has been fixed. Additionally the ASN.1 parser has
3067 been hardened to make it more robust against malformed ASN.1 objects.
3069 - applied Herbert Xu's NAT-T patches which fixes NAT-T under the native
3070 Linux 2.6 IPsec stack.
3076 - based on freeswan-2.04, x509-1.5.3, nat-0.6c, alg-0.8.1rc12