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IPSEC.SECRETSSection: File Formats (5)Updated: 28 March 1999 Index Return to Main Contents NAMEipsec.secrets - secrets for IKE/IPsec authenticationDESCRIPTIONThe file ipsec.secrets holds a table of secrets. These secrets are used by ipsec_pluto(8), the FreeS/WAN Internet Key Exchange daemon, to authenticate other hosts. Currently there are two kinds of secrets: preshared secrets and RSA private keys.It is vital that these secrets be protected. The file should be owned by the super-user, and its permissions should be set to block all access by others. The file is a sequence of entries and include directives. Here is an example.
Each entry in the file is a list of indices, followed by a secret. The two parts are separated by a colon (:) that is followed by whitespace or a newline. For compatability with the previous form of this file, if the key part is just a double-quoted string the colon may be left out. An index is an IP address or a Fully Qualified Domain Name (other kinds may come). An IP address may be written in the familiar dotted quad form or as a domain name to be looked up when the file is loaded (or in any of the forms supported by the FreeS/WAN ipsec_atoaddr(3) routine). In many cases it is a bad idea to use domain names because the name server may not be running or may be insecure. To denote a Fully Qualified Domain Name (as opposed to an IP address denoted by its domain name), precede the name with an at sign (@). To authenticate a connection between two hosts, the entry that most specifically matches the host and peer is used. An entry with no index will match any host and peer. An entry with one index will match a host and peer if the index matches the host (the peer isn't considered). An entry with multiple indices will match a host and peer if the host and peer each match one of the indices. If the key is for an asymmetric authentication technique (i.e. a public key system such as RSA), an entry with multiple indices will match a host and a peer even if only the host matches an index (it is presumed that the multiple indices are all identities of the host). It is acceptable for two entries to be the best match as long as they agree about the secret and that secret is a preshared secret. Authentication by preshared secret requires that both systems find the identical secret (the secret is not actually transmitted by the IKE protocol). If both the host and peer appear in the index list, the same entry will be suitable for both systems so verbatim copying between systems can be used. This naturally extends to larger groups sharing the same secret. Thus multiple-index entries are best for PSK authentication. Authentication by RSA Signatures requires that each host have its own private key. A host could reasonably use a different private keys for different interfaces and for different peers. But it would not be normal to share entries between systems. Thus thus no-index and one-index forms of entry often make sense for RSA Signature authentication. The key part of an entry may start with a token indicating the kind of key. ``RSA'' signifies RSA private key and ``PSK'' signifies PreShared Key (case is ignored). For compatability with previous forms of this file, PSK is the default. A preshared secret is most conveniently represented as a sequence of characters, delimited by the double-quote character ("). The sequence cannot contain a newline or double-quote. Strictly speaking, the secret is actually the sequence of bytes that is used in the file to represent the sequence of characters (excluding the delimiters). A preshared secret may also be represented in any form supported by ipsec_atodata(3). An RSA public key is a composite of eight generally large numbers. The notation used is a brace-enclosed list of field name and value pairs (see the example above). A suitable key, in a suitable format, may be generated by ipsec_rsasigkey(8). The structure is very similar to that used by BIND 8.2.2, but note that the numbers must have a ``0s'' prefix if they are in base 64. The order of the fields is fixed. The first token an entry must start in the first column of its line. Subsequent tokens must be separated by whitespace, except for a colon token, which only needs to be followed by whitespace. A newline is taken as whitespace, but every line of an entry after the first must be indented. Whitespace at the end of a line is ignored (except in the 0t notation for a key). At the start of line or after whitespace, # and the following text up to the end of the line is treated as a comment. Within entries, all lines must be indented (except for lines with no tokens). Outside entries, no line may be indented (this is to make sure that the file layout reflects its structure). Between entries, the file may contain an include directive. This causes the contents of the named file to be processed before continuing with the current file. The filename is subject to ``globbing'' as in sh(1), so every file with a matching name is processed. Includes may be nested to a modest depth (10, currently). If the filename doesn't start with a /, the directory containing the current file is prepended to the name. The include directive is a line that starts with the word include, followed by whitespace, followed by the filename (which must not contain whitespace). FILES/etc/ipsec.secretsSEE ALSOThe rest of the FreeS/WAN distribution, in particular ipsec(8), ipsec_rsasigkey(8), and ipsec_pluto(8).BIND 8.2.2, ftp://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind/src/ HISTORYDesigned for the FreeS/WAN project http://www.xs4all.nl/~freeswan/ by D. Hugh Redelmeier.
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