is used to encrypt data packets. This section describes the mechanism in more detail and the
different backwards compatibility mechanism with older server and clients.
-OpenVPN 2.5 and higher behaviour
+OpenVPN 2.5 and later behaviour
--------------------------------
When both client and server are at least running OpenVPN 2.5, that the order of
the ciphers of the server's ``--data-ciphers`` is used to pick the the data cipher.
AUTH: Received control message: AUTH_FAILED,Data channel cipher negotiation failed (no shared cipher)
-OpenVPN 2.5 will only allow the ciphers specified in ``--data-ciphers``. To ensure
-backwards compatibility also if a cipher is specified using the ``--cipher`` option
-it is automatically added to this list. If both options are unset the default is
-:code:`AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM`. In 2.6 and later the default is changed to
+OpenVPN 2.5 and later will only allow the ciphers specified in ``--data-ciphers``.
+ If ``--data-ciphers`` is not set the default is :code:`AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM`.
+In 2.6 and later the default is changed to
:code:`AES-256-GCM:AES-128-GCM:CHACHA20-POLY1305` when Chacha20-Poly1305 is available.
+For backwards compatibility OpenVPN 2.6 and later with ``--compat-mode 2.4.x``
+(or lower) and OpenVPN 2.5 will automatically add a cipher specified using the
+``--cipher`` option to this list.
+
OpenVPN 2.4 clients
-------------------
The negotiation support in OpenVPN 2.4 was the first iteration of the implementation