[Openswan Users] ipsec devices

Nate Carlson natecars at natecarlson.com
Sat Sep 18 12:22:37 CEST 2004


On Sat, 18 Sep 2004, richard lucassen wrote:
> I use native kernel-2.6-ipsec now, but I really miss my ipsecX devices. 
> As far as I understand from a quick scan of the docs I get these devices 
> back when switching to openswan. Right or wrong?

If you compile KLIPS on 2.4 or 2.6, then yes, you will get the devices 
back. Openswan can also work with the native stack; if you use it in that 
way, you will not have ipsecX devices. To get KLIPS working on 2.6, you do 
need to run Openswan CVS HEAD, and it still does not support NAT 
Traversal. Michael says it's a pretty simple patch to get it working, but 
has not had time as of yet.

> I want to use these devices to do some QoS. I suppose that is possible. 
> Right or wrong?

What type of QoS?

Using KLIPS intead of the native stack, all the packets are on a separate 
interface, and you can see all of the encrypted packets. So, you should be 
able to do whatever type of QoS you want. I would imagine there is also a 
way to do this with the native stack, though.

> I use native kernel-2.6 ipsec for multiple tunnels to SonicWall 
> appliances (ESP, 3DES, HMAC, SHA1 with shared key). Can I run into 
> problems when switching to openswan?

Should be just fine.

> Are there any disadvantages (or problems that may occur) using openswan 
> when switching from native ipsec?

Depends on who you ask.  :)  I still prefer having the ipsecX interfaces 
around, so I haven't used the native stack enough to be able to tell you 
any advantages. Herbert will likely post some of the advantages of the 
native stack that I'm not aware of.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
| nate carlson | natecars at natecarlson.com | http://www.natecarlson.com |
|       depriving some poor village of its idiot since 1981            |
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