There are several different places where encryption can be built into an existing network infrastructure, corresponding to the different protocol layers:
Low-level encryption as implemented with CIPE has the advantage that it can be made to work transparently, without any change to application software. In the case of encrypting IP packets, it can be built into IP routers which usually act as "black boxes" that only route traffic between hosts, the hosts themselves don't see at all how the routing works. So an encrypting router looks exactly like a non-encrypting one, without any difference seen by other hosts and applications. It can thus be used in places where software changes at higher levels are not feasible.
Low-level encryption has the disadvantage that it does not guard against intruders on a higher level, e.g. Trojaned applications, bug exploits in system software or rogue administrators "sniffing" on terminal devices.
A virtual private network (VPN for short) is a network (1) belonging to one organization, using its own address range, but overlayed on existing network infrastructure. IP-in-IP tunneling makes it possible to build IP-based VPNs on top of other IP-based carrier networks, such as the Internet. Encrypted tunneling guards against passive (sniffing) and active (faked message injection) attacks on the carrier network. The carrier network sees only encrypted data.
Depending on the choice of protocol, all information the original packets carry can be encrypted. This includes not only the actual (payload) data but also the TCP/IP headers, leaving no trace as to which addresses and services are actually used. Traffic analysis attacks, which attempt to gain useful information out of sniffing by "who contacts whom", are thus made unfeasible. An even more sophisticated technique to thwart traffic analysis employs the injection of dummy packets into the network which carry no useful information at all but are (at the carrier level) indistinguishable from real data packets.
IP routing in a VPN situation consists of the routing of the carrier network, which in most situations is just a standard Internet setup, and routing of the overlayed VPN. This is easiest when the address ranges of carrier and VPN do not overlap in any way. It is common for VPNs to use the 10.0.0.0/8 and 192.168.0.0/16 address ranges, which are not part of the Internet and thus do never conflict with actual Internet routing: any address in this range must be local to the organization using it. See section Example 1, for a typical example.
The IPSEC standards define a set of protocols which can be used (among other things) to build encrypted VPNs. However, IPSEC is a rather heavyweight and complicated protocol set with a lot of options, implementations of the full protocol set are still rarely used and some issues (such as key management) are still not fully resolved. CIPE uses a simpler approach, in which many things which can be parameterized (such as the choice of the actual encryption algorithm used) are an install-time fixed choice. This limits flexibility but allows for a simple (and therefore efficient, easy to debug...) implementation.
CIPE encapsulates encrypted IP datagrams in UDP datagrams and sends them via the normal UDP mechanism. This is different from standard IPIP encapsulation. UDP was chosen because this way many different endpoints can easily be distinguished by port numbers; because an IP protocol number would warrant a formal registration; and because handling of UDP datagrams is easier than using a separate IP protocol number, especially in firewalled setups. Specifically, UDP can be handled by user-level applications such as a SOCKS5 relayer. See section Working with SOCKS.
A CIPE link always connects exactly two endpoints. In many ways, the link works like a PPP dial-up link. At present, each link has its own secret 128-bit key which has to be known by both ends (and nobody else). This link key (called static key in the protocol description) is used to negotiate a frequently changed dynamic key, which encrypts the actual data.
Since CIPE 1.5 it is also possible to negotiate the keys via a public key mechanism, similar to the SSH package. This removes the need for shared secret keys. See section The PKCIPE tool.
The CIPE package consists of a kernel module and a driver program. The kernel module does the IP packet handling: sending and receiving packets, encapsulation including encryption. It implements a network device which is mostly handled like any other network device. Configuration and the whole key exchange process is done by the user level program @command{ciped}. See section Program Names.
@command{ciped} looks and behaves rather similar to @command{pppd}. In particular, opening and closing a CIPE device is tied to starting and ending a @command{ciped} process (one per device), the specification of options to the daemon mimics @command{pppd}'s setup and @command{ciped} invokes scripts on opening and closing a device.
The @command{pkcipe} program is a separate add-on to the @command{ciped} driver which manages keys and other parameters.
(This section is only relevant to readers who want to understand the source, not to the regular user.)
The module consists of an output driver, an input driver, the
encapsulation routines and some stuff to keep it all together. The
output driver is largely an adapted version of new_tunnel from
the Linux distribution. (2)
In Linux 2.0 its actual packet sending is done via the
kernel IP forwarding engine. This implies that (a) forwarding must be
enabled in the kernel and (b) the encrypted packets, being UDP packets
with the source/dest addresses given as "me" and "peer", are checked
against the forwarding (as well as the output) firewall. (If it
doesn't work for you, first make sure that your firewall rules let the
packets pass!)
The input driver is an adaptation from the kernel UDP receiver. To
activate it, ciped has to set a socket into a special mode with an
ioctl call. This has to be a connected UDP socket. The
ioctl_attach(2cipe) call replaces the socket's sendto(2) and
recvfrom(2) operations with special versions that do decryption
of traffic internally and only pass key exchange blocks to the user
layer. The whole work of decrypting and rerouting incoming traffic is
done inside a blocking recvfrom(2). This means that unlike
normal IP forwarding, it is called from user mode and the needed CPU
time is charged to the ciped process, although the data never passes
into user mode. sendto(2) encodes the block as a key exchange
block and sends it to the peer. The socket should not use
read(2), write(2), select(2) or nonblocking mode
(yet).
Before attaching the socket, the operational parameters of the device
have to be set using a ioctl_setpar(2cipe) call. The key exchange
process supplies keys to the kernel via ioctl_setkey(2cipe).
The netdevice can only be opened (configured "UP") if it has a
controlling socket. When the controlling socket is closed, the netdevice
gets closed. Conversely, closing the netdevice (with ifconfig(8))
closes the socket too. Closing deletes all information that is set by
ciped on the device.
Devices can be dynamically allocated and deallocated using a
ioctl_alloc(2cipe) call. The first device always remains
allocated as a hook for the ioctl calls.
The CIPE software package is available via the WWW from
http://sites.inka.de/~bigred/devel/cipe.html. It is distributed in
a tar.gz file, currently about 138k in size. After unpacking the
distribution, run the @command{configure} script, possibly specifying
options there. Then run @command{make}.
CIPE runs under Linux 2.0.* since 2.0.12, 2.1.* since about 2.1.103, 2.2.* and 2.3.*/2.4.* since 2.3.48. It was developed for the i386 architecture; other architectures should work.
Make sure you have the source, or at least the complete include tree, of the running kernel installed (usually in `/usr/src/linux'). The version and configuration of the kernel sources must match the kernel on which it will run exactly, or else you risk building a module which crashes. You also have to use the same compiler version than the one with which the kernel was compiled. After reconfiguring and rebuilding the kernel, don't forget to rebuild the CIPE module too. (This applies to all externally compiled modules.) Enabling "versioned symbols" on the kernel is strongly recommended, because it protects against version skew between kernel and modules.
The kernel needs "IP Forwarding/Gatewaying" enabled in the configuration for 2.0 kernels. Make sure to enable IP forwarding with
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
on system boot with 2.2 or later and recent 2.0 kernels. The urandom
device must be available.
A suited version of the module utilities (@command{modprobe} and friends) needs to be installed. When in doubt, consult the documentation in the kernel source.
The PKCIPE tool needs the OpenSSL package, version 0.9.6 or later. If this is not available, the rest of the CIPE package can still be compiled and installed as usual.
As of version 1.3, CIPE uses an autoconf-generated configure script to configure its Makefiles. This script takes the following parameters on the command line. All of the parameters have defaults which should suffice for a simple installation.
The script then looks for certain parameters (like whether compiling for
an SMP system) in the kernel headers, and it creates a new directory
named like 2.2.6-i386-cb in which compilation of the module and
daemon will take place. (This would be for Linux 2.2.6 on i386, protocol
3 [the "c"], Blowfish [the "b"].)
The PKCIPE tool and some library components are built in their source directories, they do not depend on configuration (in theory; unfortunately @command{pkcipe} is still tied to the particular @command{ciped} in use, but this is going to be fixed).
CIPE supports different versions of the encryption protocol, which in turn can be used with different ciphers (encryption algorithms). Which one is used is chosen at compile time with arguments to the @command{configure} script.
As of CIPE 1.5, the following options are possible:
Protocol version 3: This is the default protocol and recommended for most use. It is described in detail in this document. See section The CIPE protocol. The device works as an IP-only point-to-point device much like with SLIP or PPP.
Protocol version 4: This protocol uses the same data format as protocol version 3, except that the packets transmitted contain an Ethernet-compatible link-level header. With this it is possible to run payload protocols other than IP, and particularly it is possible to make the CIPE device part of an Ethernet bridge. The disadvantage is that the packets get larger than with protocol 3. It may be necessary to set the MAC address using the @option{hwaddr} option to make it unique across the VPN. With this protocol, the device has a subnet mask and broadcast address which can be set with appropriate options.
Blowfish: This is the default encryption algorithm, used with a 128 bit key.
IDEA: An alternate encryption algorithm with a 128 bit key. This algorithm is patented and may need a licence for commercial use. It is included mainly for compatibility with older installations which had only this algorithm available.
As of CIPE 1.4, both Blowfish and IDEA are available in generic C and i386 assembler implementations. The assembler versions are used where possible.
The use of a separate object directory means it is possible to compile
CIPE for separate targets in the same directory. An example would be a
machine running different kernels for testing, etc. In that case you
would have kernel directories like `/usr/src/linux-2.0.36',
`/usr/src/linux-2.2.6', and so on. Running configure
--with-linux=/usr/src/linux-2.0.36 and after that configure
--with-linux=/usr/src/linux-2.2.6 leaves two directories
2.0.36-i386-cb and 2.2.6-i386-cb. You can run @command{make}
in each of the object directories separately.
Another common case is a setup where one central box compiles kernels for different machines. You can rename CIPE's compilation directories with the --enable-name option, perhaps name them after the target machine:
./configure --with-linux=/usr/src/linux-2.2.6-bigbox \
--enable-name=bigbox
make -C 2.2.6-i386-cb-bigbox
./configure --with-linux=/usr/src/linux-2.2.6-satellite \
--enable-name=satellite
make -C 2.2.6-i386-cb-satellite
./configure --with-linux=/mounts/srv1/linux-2.2.5-small \
--enable-name=laptop
make -C 2.2.5-i386-cb-laptop
In the same way distribution maintainers could prepare a set of differently configured CIPE modules (IDEA vs. Blowfish) for one target. The names of the module and driver are chosen so that different configurations can coexist on one target. See section Program Names.
Note that real cross-compilation is not possible for now, because the configure script always assumes the CPU architecture of the system where it runs.
A simple @command{make} command compiles everything. Compiler warnings
should not occur. Do @command{make install} as
root to install the software components in their final location.
These are a kernel module, named according to the protocol version and
encryption algorithm selected, and the driver program, which is (as of
CIPE 1.3) also named after the protocol version and encryption
algorithm. See section Program Names. The Makefiles accept the semi-standard
options BINDIR, MODDIR, INFODIR to specify where the stuff gets
installed.
If PKCIPE was compiled, @command{make install} also installs the @command{pkcipe} program and a helper @command{rsa-keygen}, sets up the necessary directories and generates a host key if none is already there. See section The PKCIPE tool.
You need to create a directory `/etc/cipe' which contains at least two files, `options' and `ip-up'. You can copy the files from the `samples' directory in the distribution here, and edit them to suit your needs. See section Configuration of the CIPE software.
There is a known problem in that the various 2.0.30 and 2.0.31
pre-releases disagree on whether they have a certain feature
(SO_BINDTODEVICE), and detecting this version dependency via the
version number is not foolproof. Apparently, since 2.0.32, this problem
is resolved. If output.c doesn't compile under 2.0.*, change the
line
#ifdef SO_BINDTODEVICE
to #if 1 or #if 0 as needed.
A similar problem exists in the 2.3.99 pre-releases, where the
name part of the net_device structure has changed. If an
error occurs during compilation of `device.c' under 2.3.99pre-n,
change the conditional definition of HAVE_DEVNAME_ARRAY in
`cipe.h' to #if 1 or #if 0 as needed.
Since the 2.4.0 test releases this problem is resolved.
Once installed, the CIPE software is run by loading the module and running the @command{ciped} daemon.
The module name is cip followed by the protocol version as a
letter and the first letter of the encryption algorithm. E.g.
cipcb for version 3 (i.e. "c"), Blowfish (the default). The
device names which this module manages are the module name followed by a
number, e.g. cipcb0.
Since CIPE 1.3, the daemon program is named ciped- followed by
the protocol and encryption letters, likewise. E.g. ciped-cb.
Where this manual refers to @command{ciped}, assume the real name as given
here.
The configuration parameters of kernel module and daemon must match (the module checks this), but the daemon does not depend (at least not in theory) on the kernel version. The naming scheme is chosen so that all possible modules and daemons on one machine can coexist.
The pkcipe program is designed to be independent from the
configuration. However, currently it can only handle one version of
ciped (i.e. one protocol and cipher version). This will be fixed
in future versions.
The kernel module is loaded into the kernel via the command
modprobe modulename parameter=value...
The CIPE module accepts the following additional parameters:
cipe_debug=(number)
cipe_maxdev=(number)
cipe_maxdev=4 the devices cipcb0
through cipcb3 are available. Maximum is 99. Since CIPE 1.2, there
is no need to set this, since channels are allocated dynamically.
The module can be autoloaded via @command{kerneld}/@command{kmod}. Advanced users will recognize the following options in `/etc/conf.modules' necessary to make it work correctly:
alias cipcb0 cipcb options cipcb cipe_debug=0
Note: with dynamic device allocation, aliasing any device other than
cipcb0 is pointless and autoloading only works when the
requesting application is @command{ciped} (not @command{ifconfig} etc.)
This is a limitation inherent in dynamic device allocation.
The @command{ciped} daemon must be run as root. (Do not make it setuid.) It takes as command line arguments an optional @option{-o file} parameter specifying an options file followed by any number of individual option arguments. See section Specifying options.
Except in debugging mode, the daemon puts itself in the background and
uses syslog(3) for logging messages. Normal operation causes no
log messages except for errors and a notice when the daemon terminates.
Shutting down (with @command{ifconfig(8)}) a CIPE device terminates its @command{ciped} process, and vice-versa terminating a @command{ciped} closes the device. When a device is closed, its configuration parameters including all keys and statistics are erased. (This is different from earlier CIPE versions!) @command{ciped} does not keep any keys in memory.
When the device comes up, @command{ciped} spawns `/etc/cipe/ip-up' with the parameters described in the sample version. It waits for completion of this script before data can be sent over the device and before it goes into the background. The script is called with standard input, output and error to `/dev/null'. It typically sets routes and does some logging. Since CIPE 1.4, the script is called with all options (except key) in environment variables named after the option.
Likewise, when a CIPE device goes down, `/etc/cipe/ip-down' is invoked. @command{ciped} itself logs the interface statistics when closing.
@command{ciped} will terminate when an error occurs. This includes a "connection refused" message from the peer, to be able to detect non-working peers. This default error handling implies that no data may be sent over a link unless both ends are up and running, or the first one to come up will go down again immediately. In particular, the "ping" command in the sample `ip-up' should not be activated on both ends of a link. This behaviour can be customized. See section Error handling in @command{ciped}, for more details.
All configuration parameters are processed by the @command{ciped} daemon. It takes parameters from
in that order. Which means, parameters on the command line override those from files, and parameters from an explicit options file override those from the default options file.
Options are one of the types: boolean, integer, string, IP address, IP
address with port number. Booleans are default false and specifying them
as option makes them true. IP addresses are given as dot-quad notation
or domain names which can be resolved using gethostbyname(3). UDP
or TCP addresses are given as ip:port, where the port is a number
or a name resolvable by getservbyname(3).
The syntax for specifying options is name=value on the command
line, and name value (one option per line, no continuations,
escapes, quoting etc.) in the options file.
For security reasons, options files must be given as absolute paths, and they and all their parent directories must be owned by root and not writable by group or other, and the options file itself must be even not readable by group or other (because it may contain secret keys).
(Req=Required parameter)
| Name | Type | Req | |
device | String | no | Name of the CIPE device. If not given, the system picks a free one. |
debug | Bool | Don't go background, use stderr instead of syslog. (Independent of the kernel driver debug option.) | |
ipaddr | IP | yes | IP address of the CIPE device. |
ptpaddr | IP | (yes) | IP address of the peer device (i.e. the CIPE device on the other end). For protocol 3. |
mask | IP | no | Netmask of the CIPE device. For protocol 4. |
bcast | IP | no | Broadcast address of the CIPE device. For protocol 4. |
mtu | Int | no | Device MTU (default: ethernet standard MTU minus all necessary headers) |
metric | Int | no | Device metric (not sure if this is used anywhere...) |
cttl | Int | no | Carrier TTL value. If not specified or 0, use the payload packet's TTL. Default recommendation is 64. |
me | UDP | no | Our carrier UDP address. If either IP or port are not given, the system picks one and reports it via `ip-up'. |
peer | UDP | yes | The other end's carrier UDP address. |
key | String | (yes) | The link key. For security reasons, the key has to be set via an
options file, subject to the restrictions described above. The key
should be 128 bits in hexadecimal encoding. (To generate such a beast
from random, try ps -auxw | md5sum.)
|
nokey | Bool | Don't encrypt at all, just encapsulate in UDP. Only with this option,
key is not needed.
| |
socks | TCP | no | Address (port required!) of the SOCKS5 server. See section Working with SOCKS. |
tokxc | Int | no | Timeout (seconds) for key exchange. Default: 10. |
tokey | Int | no | Dynamic key lifetime. Default: 600 (10 minutes). |
ipup | String | no | Script to run instead of `/etc/cipe/ip-up'. |
ipdown | String | no | Script to run instead of `/etc/cipe/ip-down'. |
arg | String | no | Argument to supply to `ip-up', `ip-down'. |
maxerr | Int | no | Maximum number of errors before ciped exits. See section Error handling in @command{ciped}. |
tokxts | Int | no | Key exchange timestamp timeout. Default: 0 (no timestamps). Set this to 30 to prevent key exchange replay attacks, but only if the peer runs CIPE 1.2 or later and both system clocks are reasonably synchronized. |
ping | Int | no | Frequency (in seconds) for keep-alive pings. Default is don't send any pings. The "ping" used here is internal to CIPE, not ICMP ping. |
toping | Int | no | Timeout for pings. If no answer is received on a keep-alive ping in this time, it counts as an error, See section Error handling in @command{ciped}. Default is no check for answers. |
dynip | Bool | Assume the carrier is on a dynamic IP address. See section Dynamic carrier addresses. | |
hwaddr | String | no | Set the dummy MAC address used in Ethernet mode (protocol 4). |
ifconfig | Bool | Require an external @command{ifconfig} call to configure the interface. | |
checksum | Bool | Use checksummed UDP carrier packets. Only necessary if the network does not like unchecksummed packets. |
Versions of CIPE before 1.4.0 have a bug in the way the key
option is interpreted. It is supposed to be a 128-bit hexadecimal
number. However, earlier versions interpret the digits `a' through
`f' as equal to `1' through `6'. This reduces the
effective key space from
@ifnottex
16^32
(32 hex digits) to
@ifnottex
10^32
(32 decimal digits), or 109 bits. Worse, it introduces
bias in the distribution of bit patterns in the effective key.
This bug needed to be fixed as soon as it was found. Unfortunately the fix means that old and new versions of @command{ciped} will read the same key parameter differently, in other words: keys are not compatible between 1.4.0 and older when they contain any non-decimal digits.
The solution to make them work again is either to upgrade both ends at once (recommended), or generate new keys which consist only of decimal digits. A possible method to generate such a key is
(ps aux|md5sum; ps alx|md5sum) | tr -cd 0-9
Alternatively, the 1.4 or newer package can be given the option @option{--enable-bug-compatible} to @command{configure} to use the old broken key parser.
With the socks option, CIPE uses a SOCKS5 server for sending and
receiving the encrypted data. Since this is UDP, SOCKS4 (which doesn't
support UDP) can not be used. SOCKS5 has a number of authentication
methods. CIPE can use either no authentication or Username/Password.
(3)
Username and password are taken from the environment variables
@env{SOCKS5_USER} and @env{SOCKS5_PASSWD}.
The SOCKS server is free to pick any IP address, or at least any port number, as it sees fit. Thus using SOCKS implies a dynamic carrier address. See section Dynamic carrier addresses.
The implementation is not based on a SOCKS library, don't attempt to link @command{ciped} with it.
@command{ciped} periodically checks whether the SOCKS server has closed the control connection. If the SOCKS server goes down, there is no way to recover without restarting the client (in this case, @command{ciped}). This is a limitation in the SOCKS5 protocol. See section Error handling in @command{ciped}.
CIPE can handle dynamically changing carrier addresses. This is subject to certain restrictions, however.
When a link is already established, one end must notice when the other end's carrier address changes. CIPE versions since 0.5.1 do this automatically.
When one end of the link is on a real dynamic IP address (dial-up device), it must notice when its own carrier address changes. This requires Linux 2.2 or higher, CIPE version 1.4.0 or higher and the @option{dynip} option set.
The trickiest part with using dynamic carrier addresses is finding out the peer address before the link is established. Each CIPE needs to know the IP address and UDP port number to send packets to. Normally this is set with the @option{peer} option. As soon as a valid packet is received the driver recognizes the peer address automatically.
With one static and one dynamic (or SOCKS) end, this is fairly easy. Just make sure the dynamic end has the right @option{peer} option, and (only!) the dynamic end has the @command{ping} in the example `ip-up' activated. The @command{ping} will ensure that the dynamic end tells the static end its carrier address as soon as possible. The static end should use a dummy @option{peer} which does not respond to packets normally(4) and the option @option{maxerr=-1}. The link is initiated by the dynamic end.
Whether a link between two dynamic carriers is possible depends on the
situation. It must be possible for one end to tell the other end its
current address in some way outside of CIPE, and it should be
possible to initiate an immediate restart of ciped this way.
As of CIPE 1.5, the recommended way to do this is the PKCIPE program.
See section The PKCIPE tool.
The `ip-up' script is always given the correct address in the @env{me} environment variable. For dynamic addresses this is the current address and for SOCKS this is the address of the SOCKS relayer.
In such a configuration, both ends should use @option{maxerr=-1} and the
initiating end should use the ping.
See section Connection modes, for an overview on the different sorts of dynamic addresses and how they can be handled.
When the remote @command{ciped} is down or not available, the local
@command{ciped} will get a "connection refused" error. Older versions
always exited on this error. This has proven impractical in some
situations, so an extra option has been added: maxerr determines
how many network errors @command{ciped} will tolerate before exiting. This
counter is reset when the connection proves OK (more precisely: when a
key exchange packet is received). The default for maxerr is 8,
like the non-changeable default in version 0.5.1. A value of -1 will
cause @command{ciped} to ignore any network errors. In this case, it can
only be brought down manually.
If keep-alive pings are enabled, a failure to respond to a ping counts as one error in this picture. This means that for maxerr=5 and ping=60, a dead link will take ciped down after five minutes.
Error handling for SOCKS is independent of this option, however. When an error occurs on the SOCKS control connection (e.g., the SOCKS server goes down), @command{ciped} will exit. This behaviour is mandated by the SOCKS5 protocol.
The @command{pkcipe} program, included in the CIPE package since version 1.5, eases configuration and running of CIPE links. With @command{pkcipe} it is not necessary to use long lived static keys. A public key based scheme (using Diffie-Hellman key exchange and RSA signatures) is used instead. @command{pkcipe} also automatically handles dynamic carrier addresses.
To start a CIPE link, two instances of the @command{pkcipe} program, one
on each side of the link, are connected via TCP. They do a key exchange,
yielding a new random key which is used as the key parameter for
CIPE. They tell each other their identity and send a
signature built with their private key.
Each side verifies the signature using the other side's public key. Additional parameters are exchanged as necessary. Currently these additional parameters are only the carrier IP addresses, which the @command{pkcipe} program obtains from the system at run time.
After all parameters are set up, @command{pkcipe} writes an options file containing the new key and other parameters and starts @command{ciped} with this options file. Then @command{pkcipe} exits and the TCP connection is closed.
With PKCIPE, each host has a public/private key pair. The private (secret) key is kept in the file `/etc/cipe/identity.priv' and never copied anywhere else. The `/etc/cipe/pk' directory contains the public keys of all peers. For all key files, the same restrictions on file and directory permissions apply as for options files. See section Specifying options.
Each host has an identity (may be its host name) by which it is known to its peers. The public key files are named according to these identities. Each public key files also contains options (as in a CIPE options file) for this peer. The peer which has the right private key is allowed to connect.(5) program.}
A public key pair may be generated with the @command{rsa-keygen} script.
This generates two files, one with the public and one with the private
key, the latter having the file name ending .priv. The Makefile
automatically does this on installation time if necessary.
The secret key may be encrypted with a passphrase. In this case @command{pkcipe} asks for the passphrase every time it starts. This may be useful e.g. for mobile systems which connect manually to a central host. The @option{-p} argument to @command{rsa-keygen} allows to set a passphrase on the newly generated secret key. For existing secret keys, the passphrase can be changed with the command
openssl rsa -des3 -out newfile -in oldfile
and deleted with the command
openssl rsa -out newfile -in oldfile
where `oldfile' is the existing secret key file; the result will be stored in `newfile'.
The @command{pkcipe} program must be run as root. (Do not make it setuid.) @command{pkcipe} takes the following command line parameters:
The location of the ciped command to be run by PKCIPE, as well as
the auxiliary files read from and written to, is currently hardcoded at
compile time.
Here are some tips, examples and additional information on how to design a network structure with CIPE and configure the devices accordingly.
route add -host $5 dev $1 in `ip-up' is required.
Without it the link won't work. This also means the `ip-up' script itself
is mandatory.
$1 or $5 if you have
several CIPE links. Use route add ... gw $5, not route add
... dev $1. Remember that Linux deletes any routes through a device
when this device goes down.
ipaddr is the other's ptpaddr, and one side's me
is the other's peer. Since CIPE 0.5, peer is picked up
dynamically and the real peer may be different from that set in the
config file (but this config item must still be present, it should
specify the other end's reverse as a reasonable default).
device option
should be used if the device name is used in firewall rules.
ip-up sample scripts is mandatory as they are used as lock files.
Omitting these can cause confusion when several instances of
pkcipe run at the same time.
This basic example shows how to connect hosts and networks with unofficial network numbers through the Internet. Uses for this are classic VPN setups:
Internet Internet
^ ^
| | hostz
|ppp0 |eth1 200.0.24.3
|200.0.24.65 |200.0.24.1 |
+---------routera routerb eth0 200.0.24.1 |
| eth0 \_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _/ \---------------+-------+---+
| 10.0.1.1 cipcb0 cipcb0 eth0 | |
hosta 10.0.1.1 10.0.2.1 10.0.2.1 | |
10.0.1.88 hostx hosty
10.0.2.5 10.0.2.6
As can be seen from the picture, a CIPE device and another network device can have the same IP address if there are no overlapping routes between them.
The CIPE devices are configured like this:
| routera | routerb | |
| cipcb0 | cipcb0 | |
| ipaddr | 10.0.1.1 | 10.0.2.1 |
| ptpaddr | 10.0.2.1 | 10.0.1.1 |
| me | 200.0.24.65:9999 | 200.0.24.1:9999 |
| peer | 200.0.24.1:9999 | 200.0.24.65:9999 |
| static routes | 10.0.1.0/24 dev eth0 | 10.0.2.0/24 dev eth0 |
| default dev ppp0 | 200.0.24.0/26 dev eth0 | |
| default dev eth1 | ||
| routes in ip-up | 10.0.2.0/24 gw 10.0.2.1 | 10.0.1.0/24 gw 10.0.1.1 |
For case 3, assume routera to be the mobile host, think of
eth0 missing and ppp0 having a dynamic address. The
routerb config remains unchanged. For routera simply omit
the eth0 stuff, add the dynip flag for ciped. routerb
picks up its peer dynamically. This even works when routerb is
plugged behind a firewall and has to rely on a SOCKS5 server for outside
access. (Yes, this can be used to punch holes into firewalls. No, it's
not my intention to do anything about it. Local policy issues have to be
dealt with locally.)
This example shows how to set up PKCIPE. The overall setup is symmetric, there are no designated servers and clients. However, one end has to accept incoming TCP connections on a chosen port (server mode) and the other one has to connect to it (client mode).
The basic configuration of a link is like this: assuming routera
has the address (of the CIPE device) 10.0.1.1 and routerb
has the address 10.0.2.1 like in Example 1. Each
`/etc/cipe/pk/host' file contains the public key of that host
together with options applying to that host:
On routera, `/etc/cipe/pk/routerb' looks like this:
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY----- (here is the public key of routerb) -----END PUBLIC KEY----- ipaddr 10.0.1.1 ptpaddr 10.0.2.1
and on routerb, `/etc/cipe/pk/routera' looks like this:
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY----- (here is the public key of routera) -----END PUBLIC KEY----- ipaddr 10.0.2.1 ptpaddr 10.0.1.1
This is all of the minimum configuration. Note that no me and
peer options are necessary. These are determined by
@command{pkcipe}. It does not matter which side runs pkcipe in
server and which one in client mode.
In server mode, pkcipe has to be started via inetd. This
requires the following steps:
pkcipe 963/tcp
pkcipe stream tcp nowait root /usr/local/sbin/pkcipe pkcipeor if using TCP Wrapper for access control:
pkcipe stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/sbin/pkcipeRestart
inetd after any change.
The other end then initiates the connection simply via
pkcipe -c server.machine:pkcipe
It is possible to run this connection through NAT (masquerading) or via
SOCKS using a dynamic SOCKS library (socksify/runsocks
script). In the latter case it may be necessary to repeat the peer
address in a -r server.machine argument.
Here is in detail how it is possible to build CIPE links between different classes of carriers. Those classes are, based on how they are able to reach the Internet:
This produces ten different combinations:
pkcipe gets the right IP addresses at both ends, later
changes are handled automatically. (6)
ping in ip-up at the `3' end.
The `3' end does not know its effective (as seen by the other end)
carrier address, so the PKCIPE exchange produces a wrong peer
parameter at the `1' end. The ping corrects that by sending
packets with the right address. (7)
ip-up script, but
transmitting it to the other end would need some means outside of CIPE.
It is planned that future versions will be able to handle this via
extended capabilities of PKCIPE; this will also require an external
service like dynamic DNS with a special setup.
See section Dynamic carrier addresses, for a more detailed explanation of some of these configurations.
This chapter is copied verbatim from the earlier documentation texts.
The primary goal of this software is to provide a facility for secure (against eavesdropping, including traffic analsyis, and faked message injection) subnetwork interconnection across an insecure packet network such as the Internet.
1. Overview
This protocol was designed to be simple and efficient, and to work over existing communication facilities, especially by encapsulation in UDP packets. Compatibility with existing protocols such as the IPSEC RFCs were not a concern. The first test implementation was done entirely on the user level, while the now published one consists of a kernel module and a user level program.
The CIPE model assumes a fixed link between two peers which exchange datagrams (packetwise, not necessarily reliable). The most common way of implementing such a thing is sending UDP messages between them. (Another would be encapsulation in PPP, etc.)
Nothing that can be parameterized is inside the scope of this protocol and implementation. This is delegated to either prior arrangement or a yet-to-be-defined application level protocol. Most notably, this involves exchanging a shared secret key by now, and it involves choice of encryption algorithm.
The CIPE protocol consists of two parts: Encryption and checksumming of the data packets and dynamic key exchange.
Each IP datagram is taken as a whole, including headers. It is padded at the end with zero to seven random octets so that the total length in octets is congruent three modulo eight. The padded packet is appended with one octet of the value P described below and the CRC-32 over the packet built up so far, up to and including P. (This makes the complete packet length a multiple of eight octets.)
This packet is then encrypted through a 64-bit block cipher in CBC mode with an IV as described below using either the static or the sending dynamic key of the outbound interface (for definition of keys see below). The default cipher algorithm is IDEA. The current implementation also supports Blowfish with 128 bit key.
The encrypted packet is prepended with the IV block. The highest order bit of the first octet of the IV is zero if the static key is used, one if the dynamic key is used. The remaining 63 bits are random, but the first 31 of them should not be all zeros (i.e. an IV/packet that starts with hex 0000 0000 or 8000 0000 is not allowed). Such packets are reserved for later protocol extensions.
The CRC is over the polynomial
X^32+X^26+X^23+X^22+X^16+X^12+X^11+X^10+X^8+X^7+X^5+X^4+X^2+X^1+X^0
and represented in network byte order.
The value P is given as follows: bits 6,5,4 indicate the length of the padding between the original packet end and P. Bits 2,1 are a type code, indicating which kind of packet this is. The remaining bits 7,3,0 are reserved and must be zero.
The type codes are: 00 - data 01 - key exchange 10 - reserved 11 - reserved
For decryption, first check the highest bit of the first octet and use it to select the key. Decrypt the packet, calculate the CRC over the packet minus the last four octets, compare that with the last four octets. If valid, strip off the last octet as value P, strip off the padding as given by bits 6,5,4 of P and process the packet as indicated by bits 2,1 of P.
Every interface is associated with a static key, a sending dynamic key and a receiving dynamic key. (An interface is an endpoint of a connection, which may use protocols like UDP for transport but for the purpose of CIPE are always point-to-point links.) On startup, only the static key is valid. Encryption uses the static key if and only if the sending dynamic key is invalid. The value 0 (all bits zero) for the static key is reserved for future extensions and should not be used.
The dynamic key is set by a dialogue procedure involving messages with type code bits 01. These are encrypted just like above. The packets consist of a type octet followed by protocol data followed by a random amount of padding random data, so that the packet is at least 64 octets long. A key consists of 16 octets, a key CRC is the CRC-32 over the key, transferred in network order.
The following messages exist:
NK_REQ: Type code 1, no data: Requests the peer to immediately start a key negotiation (send NK_IND). This should be sent when a packet is received encrypted with a dynamic key but no dynamic receive key is valid. (Which can happen when the receiving side of a connection is rebooted while the sending side remains running.)
NK_IND: Type code 2, data is new key followed by key CRC. Specifies a new sending dynamic key for this sender. Requests the peer to immediately answer with NK_ACK.
NK_ACK: Type code 3, data is CRC of the previously accepted key. Confirms receipt of NK_IND.
The key negotiation procedure normally runs as follows: The sender sends a NK_IND with the new key, then invalidates its own sending key. Upon receipt of NK_IND, the receiver starts using this key as its receiving key and sends a NK_ACK. When the sender receives NK_ACK, it starts using the new key as its sending key. If either of NK_IND or NK_ACK is lost in transmission, no new key will be used. The sender should send a new NK_IND (with new key) if no matching NK_ACK is received within a reasonable amount of time (current specification: 10 seconds).
If any of the checksums contained in the key negotiation data mismatches the contained or stored key, this packet is ignored and no further action taken.
A sending dynamic key should be invalidated after being used for a certain period of time or amount of data and a new NK_IND sent. The process is symmetric and both sides act independently for their own sending key. The dynamic key lifetime should not exceed 15 minutes and the amount of data sent using one dynamic key should not exceed 2^32 packets.
Optionally, the key exchange packets can be timestamped. The timestamp is a 32bit unsigned integer in network order representing the UNIX time of the sending host, placed in octets 56-59 (starting at zero) of the key exchange packets. The receiver may be configured to ignore the timestamp, or it may be configured to reject all key exchange packets whose timestamp differs from the current UNIX time of the receiving host by more than a defined amount. It is recommended that this timeout not exceeds 30 seconds.
4. Security considerations
The packets that actually get transmitted don't carry any usable information related to the original IP datagram other than its length, padded to a multiple of 8. This should effectively guard against most aspects of traffic analysis. The only information visible prior (attempt) to decrypting the packet is the bit that tells whether the static or dynamic key was used. Because the static key has a potentially long lifetime it is expected to be used as rarely as possible. It is normally used only in the short period of time during a key exchange. The dynamic key is changed often. These precautions are there because the application is prone to known and chosen plaintext attacks and the intention is to inhibit feeding of large amounts of data through one key.
Because the type code and padding length are encrypted with the packet, they can not be deduced from the ciphertext. Especially, it is not possible to determine whether the packet is a data or key exchange packet. (Usually, the last packet of a sequence of dynamic key packets followed by a sequence of static key packets is a NK_IND, but the NK_ACK and a possible second NK_IND can't be guessed this way, so there is no provision to tell whether the key exchange succeeded. However, this is a small but real weakness.)
The CRC serves as a check whether the encryption key was valid - i.e. some sort of signature for authenticity of the packet. Additionally, data packets should still have to form valid IP headers (with their own 16-bit checksum) and key exchange packets carry their own checksum as defined above.
IP packets carry some known or easily guessable plaintext in certain positions of their header. Potential exploitation of this fact should be mitigated by the limited key usage described above. The use of a random IV for each packet means at least that identical (retransmitted) packets encrypt to different ciphertexts.
The protocol gives only limited protection against replay attacks. A packet remains valid as long as the key it is encrypted with remains valid. However, active exploitation is unlikely as the packet carries no indication of its meaning. (Except for the note about sequences and NK_IND above. Replay of NK_IND could be dangerous. Possible remedy: store the last N accepted key CRCs [for large-ish N] and refuse to accept NK_INDs with the same CRC as an already stored one.)
If the timestamp of key exchange packets is used, it should guard against replay of key exchange packets. However, this requires that the clocks of both machines are in sync.
Denial of service attacks are possible e.g. by sending large amounts of bogus packets, which should affect performance only. A vulnerability against disruption of the key generation process exists if the sender is overrun with bogus packets so that it fails to process the NK_ACK, effectively being forced to use its static sending key for a prolonged period of time. A possible way out of this problem is to stop sending data completely after a long burst of static key sends, sending only NK_INDs and resuming only after a valid NK_ACK has been processed. Then this attack would become a simple denial-of-service.
5. Practical test, Conclusion
The mentioned prototype implementations, one on the user level and one as a kernel module, have been in use for several months now on a live network, where they provide a transparent connection between subnetworks through an insecure transit network based on UDP encapsulation. This does work flawlessly. However, it is too early to draw final conclusions about the feasibility of this approach.
It is planned to replace the simple secret key based key exchange process described above by a signed Diffie-Hellman scheme, which would eliminate the need for secret keys.
6. Appendix: New protocol for control messages in CIPE 1.3
CIPE 1.3 has added control messages. These are transmitted as key exchange messages with a type code of 0x70 or higher. They may, but don't need to carry a timestamp.
CT_DUMMY: Type code 0x70. Dummy/keepalive message, should be ignored by the receiver.
CT_DEBUG: Type code 0x71. Debug message. The data is a string which the receiver should log.
CT_PING: Type code 0x72. Echo request. Receiver should immediately answer with a CT_PONG.
CT_PONG: Type code 0x73. Echo reply. Data should be copied from the CT_PING message.
CT_KILL: Type code 0x74. Requests the peer to exit. Data is a string which should be logged, indicating the reason.
Strings sent in control packets should not exceed 254 octets in length. They should be terminated with a zero octet, after which random padding may follow. If the messages are timestamped, the string must not exceed a length of 54 octets, so a timestamp can be placed at octet 56.
CIPE 1.5 has added the following control messages. Because they are expected to be evaluated without even knowing if a matching key exists, they are sent as unencrypted control messages (see next section).
CT_CONFREQ: Type code 0x75. Tells the peer the fixed (compile-time) configuration parameters. The receiver should compare this to its own parameters, warn the user on any mismatch, and in any case immediately reply with a CT_CONF message.
The data in this packet is the following structure (shown here including the type code:)
| (Octet 0 | the type code) |
| 1-3 | filler, ignored |
| 4-8 | the ASCII letters "CIPE" |
| 9 | the protocol version, here 3 or 4 |
| 10 | letter indicating the encryption algorithm ("b" or "i") |
| 11-12 | Major/minor number of the software release |
| 13 | 1 if the implementation uses a correct key parser, |
| 0 for the broken key interpretation of CIPE <1.4 |
This structure may be extended in the future.
CT_CONF: Type code 0x76. Identical to CT_CONFREQ except that it does not solicit a response.
7. Appendix: New protocol for unencrypted control messages in CIPE 1.5
Starting with CIPE 1.5, control messages of certain kinds may be sent in the clear without any encryption at all. These are sent as a packet starting with an all-zeros IV (i.e. 8 zero bytes for IDEA and Blowfish), after which the actual message follows. The packet may carry a timestamp; the position of the timestamp is calculated starting with (i.e. including) the all-zeros IV.
Receivers must treat a packet starting with an IV with its first 32 bits zero as unencrypted control message. They should discard with a warning any unencrypted control message which would affect the proper operation of the daemon or the keying, especially CT_KILL and all KX_ messages.
A. Appendix: Errata
The IV specification originally said: "The remaining 63 bits are random, but the first 15 of them should not be all zeros (i.e. an IV/packet that starts with hex 0000 0000 or 8000 0000 is not allowed)." This is inconsistent. The hex numbers are correct and the right number of bits is 31. This has been corrected in the text above.
To be written.
ipip protocol, the
new_tunnel driver, and the udp protocol.
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