Vpnsec Linux install

Installation with NetworkManager on Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS

Networkmanager is now capable of generating a new vpn connection without manually creating the config file. Start with installing the necessary packages:

$ sudo apt install strongswan-nm network-manager-strongswan libstrongswan-standard-plugins  strongswan-libcharon \
                   libcharon-extauth-plugins libstrongswan-extra-plugins strongswan-charon libcharon-extra-plugins

Reboot after the installation. Via Settings -> Network you can then add a VPN connection by clicking on the +. Choose a name for the connection profile, fill in vpnsec.science.ru.nl as Server address. Choose as Client Authentication EAP (Username/Password) and fill in your science account for Identity and Username. By clicking on the ? after Password you can select the policy for the password. Finally in the Options select 'Request an inner IP address' and 'Enforce UDP encapsulation'

Apply and then you can switch on the VPN through the NetworkManager applet in the toolbar.

Plasma (KDE)

Pretty much the same as the general instructions, "Server" may be called "Gateway" heet, you don't need to specify a key or certificate, I assume this is for key-based authentication.

To make an actual VPN connection, go to the system tray and select VPN from the network icon and click connect.

Installation with NetworkManager on Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS

Ubuntu 16.04: There is a known bug people are trying to fix, see: msg4923789.

With Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS it is now possible to use ipsec. However some manual configuration has to be performed, editting the connection using the VPN applet is not possible,

• Install required software:

$ sudo apt install strongswan-nm network-manager-strongswan libstrongswan-standard-plugins strongswan-plugin-eap-mschapv2 

• Copy the contents below to /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/VPN-science:

[connection]
id=vpnsec.science.ru.nl
uuid=1e0ab541-e051-41c2-819f-a005b296c53b
type=vpn
autoconnect=false
permissions=
secondaries=
timestamp=1465384551

[vpn]
virtual=yes
encap=yes
address=vpnsec.science.ru.nl
user=USERNAME
method=eap
password-flags=0
ipcomp=no
service-type=org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.strongswan

[vpn-secrets]
password=

[ipv4]
dns-search=
method=auto

[ipv6]
addr-gen-mode=stable-privacy
dns-search=
ip6-privacy=0
method=auto

• Change USERNAME to your science login.
• Change the permissions to -rw------- (owner rw permisions, group and other no permissions):

  chmod u=rw,go= /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/VPN-science
  ls -la /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/

• Reboot the machine before trying to use the VPN connection.

Starting the connection is identical to Ubuntu 14.04. (When starting the VPN connection, your science password is requested)
NB: The password will be stored in plain text in the file mentioned above!

Installation with NetworkManager on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

This procedure assumes using NetworkManager. See below for a manual procedure.

Install the required software:

$ sudo apt-get install network-manager-strongswan strongswan-plugin-eap-mschapv2
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libstrongswan{a} network-manager-strongswan strongswan-ike{a} strongswan-nm{a}
  strongswan-plugin-eap-mschapv2 strongswan-plugin-openssl{a} 
...

$ sudo service network-manager stop
network-manager stop/waiting
$ sudo service network-manager start
network-manager start/running, process 29031

Configuration:

Select the NetworkManager applet and after that Edit Connections...

Click Add, select IPsec/IKEv2 in the section VPN, click Create

Enter data at:Connection name, Address (vpnsec.science.ru.nl), loginname, etc. and check the marks where needed.

Save: (Save and Close)

Start the VPN. Select the NetworkManager applet, next VPN Connections and finally the connection created.

Known problems

If the VPN connection has been established, but ping ns1.science.ru.nl doesn't work, while ping 131.174.224.4 does work, then probably dnsmasq is the culprit. This can be solved bij disabling the dnsmasq DNS cache, as is described in Ask Ubuntu: DNS problem when connected to a VPN:

First make sure that there are no lines beginning with nameserver in any files in /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d.
If /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/tail is a symbolic link to target original, make it point to /dev/null.

Second, disconnect from the VPN. Edit /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

$ sudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

and comment out

dns=dnsmasq

(i.e., add a # so that it looks like the following)

#dns=dnsmasq

and then

sudo service network-manager restart

Installation with NetworkManager on Debian Jessie

Unfortunately, the strongswan-network-manager package did not make it to Debian Jessie (and as of writing, is not in jessie-backports either). Nevertheless, backporting the current version of the package appears to work fine. The steps involved in achieving this were taken almost verbatim from this guide.

First you have to install the debian packaging tools:

sudo apt-get install packaging-dev debian-keyring devscripts equivs

Afterwards you have to download the debian source package:

dget -x http://http.debian.net/debian/pool/main/n/network-manager-strongswan/network-manager-strongswan_1.3.1-1.dsc

Install potentially missing dependencies:

cd network-manager-strongswan-1.3.1/
sudo mk-build-deps --install --remove

Add a backport revision number:

dch --local ~bpo80+ --distribution jessie-backports "Rebuild for jessie-backports."

Build the package (without package signing)

dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc

Install the newly built package:

sudo dpkg -i ../network-manager-strongswan_1.3.1-1~bpo80+1_amd64.deb

Install potentially missing dependencies, just to be sure:

sudo apt-get install -f

Install additional plugins (most notably the eap-mschapv2 plugin):

sudo apt-get install libcharon-extra-plugins

Restart network manager

sudo systemctl restart network-manager.service

Installation without NetworkManager

Note: Below some remarks on doing this for Fedora Core (FC23).

Install strongswan, including the curl, eap-identity, eap-mschapv2 and eap-md5 (required for eap-mschapv2) plugins. When you compile strongswan from source, make sure to pass the right parameters to the configure script.

$ ./configure --enable-curl --enable-md5 --enable-openssl --enable-xauth-eap --enable-eap-md5 --enable-eap-gtc --enable-eap-tls --enable-eap-ttls --enable-eap-peap --enable-eap-mschapv2 --enable-eap-identify
$ make
$ sudo make install

You can test which plugins are loaded with sudo ipsec statusall or sudo ipsec listplugins. If necessary you can load plugins manually by editing strongswan.conf.

Make sure your ipsec.conf, probably located in /etc or in /usr/local/etc, looks like this:

config setup
    strictcrlpolicy=yes

conn %default
    ikelifetime=60m
    keylife=20m
    rekeymargin=3m
    keyingtries=1
    keyexchange=ikev2

conn science
    left=%defaultroute
    leftfirewall=yes
    leftsourceip=%config
    leftauth=eap-mschapv2
    leftid=mysciencelogin        <-- edit this
    eap_identity=mysciencelogin  <-- edit this
    right=vpnsec.science.ru.nl
    rightauth=pubkey
    rightid=@vpnsec.science.ru.nl
    rightsubnet=0.0.0.0/0
    forceencaps=yes
    auto=start

And your ipsec.secrets as follows, where you enter your own Science account name and password. Watch out that this file cannot be read by everyone, as it contains your password! It is typically owned by root:root with -rw------- (600) permissions.

mysciencelogin : EAP "mypassword"

Everything should work now:

$ sudo ipsec start
$ sudo ipsec up science

It can be necessary to put the root certificate in the right folder manually:

$ sudo ln -s /etc/ca-certificates/extracted/cadir/DigiCert_Assured_ID_Root_CA.pem [/usr/local]/etc/ipsec.d/cacerts/DigiCert_Assured_ID_Root_CA.pem

Fedora (FC23)

Work in progress... [Gebruiker:Arjen], FC23, 4/3/2016:

On Fedora (tested on FC23), replace command ipsec by strongswan in the instructions above.

To get the newest SELinux policies, you need to issue:

dnf update --enablerepo=updates-testing selinux-policy

Edit /etc/strongswan/strongswan.d/charon/resolve.conf to include a line:

file = /etc/resolv.conf

To resolve errors about certificate CN=TERENA SSL CA 3 not being trusted:

Navigate to [2] Download DigiCert_Assured_ID_Root_CA.crt and TERENA_SSL_CA_3.crt.

Next, extract the .pem files, copy these to the strongswan config directories, and reread the certificates, like this:

openssl x509 -inform DES -in DigiCert_Assured_ID_Root_CA.crt -out DigiCert_Assured_ID_Root_CA.pem -text
openssl x509 -inform DES -in TERENA_SSL_CA_3.crt -out TERENA_SSL_CA_3.pem -text

cp DigiCert_Assured_ID_Root_CA.pem /etc/strongswan/ipsec.d/cacerts
cp TERENA_SSL_CA_3.pem /etc/strongswan/ipsec.d/certs

strongswan rereadall

To overcome problems with DNS, I had to stop service `libvirtd`. Yet to be resolved.