NAME

       ipsec_auto - control automatically-keyed IPsec connections

SYNOPSIS

       ipsec auto [--showonly] [--asynchronous]
             [--config configfile] [--verbose] operation connection

       ipsec auto [--showonly] [--asynchronous]
             [--config configfile] [--verbose] operation connection

EXAMPLES

       ipsec auto { --add | --delete | --replace | --start } connection

       ipsec auto { --up | --down } connection

       ipsec auto { --route | --unroute | --ondemand } connection

       ipsec auto { --status | --ready }

       ipsec auto [--utc] [--listall | --rereadall] [--rereadsecrets] [--listcerts] [--listpubkeys]
             [--checkpubkeys] [--listcacerts] [--fetchcrls] [--listcrls] [--purgeocsp]

       ipsec auto [--utc] [--rereadcerts] connection

DESCRIPTION

       Auto manipulates automatically-keyed Libreswan IPsec connections, setting them up and shutting them down
       based on the information in the IPsec configuration file. In the normal usage, connection is the name of
       a connection specification in the configuration file; operation is --add, --delete, --replace, --start,
       --up, --down, --route, --unroute, --ondemand, The --ready, --rereadsecrets, and --status operations do
       not take a connection name.  Auto generates suitable commands and feeds them to a shell for execution.

       The --add operation adds a connection specification to the internal database within pluto; it will fail
       if pluto already has a specification by that name. The --delete operation deletes a connection
       specification from pluto's internal database (also tearing down any connections based on it); The
       --replace operation is equivalent to --delete (if there is already a loaded connection by the given name)
       followed by --add, and is a convenience for updating pluto's internal specification to match an external
       one. (Note that a --rereadsecrets may also be needed.) The --start operation is equivalent to running
       first with --add and then with --up, causing same effect as connection configuration option auto=start.

       The --up operation asks pluto to establish a connection based on an entry in its internal database. The
       --down operation tells pluto to tear down such a connection.

       Normally, pluto establishes a route to the destination specified for a connection as part of the --up
       operation. However, the route can be established with the --route operation. Until and unless an actual
       connection is established, this discards any packets sent there, which may be preferable to having them
       sent elsewhere based on a more general route (e.g., a default route).

       Normally, pluto's route to a destination remains in place when a --down operation is used to take the
       connection down (or if connection setup, or later automatic rekeying, fails). This permits establishing a
       new connection (perhaps using a different specification; the route is altered as necessary) without
       having a “window” in which packets might go elsewhere based on a more general route. Such a route can be
       removed using the --unroute operation (and is implicitly removed by --delete).

       The --ondemand operation is equivalent to running first with --add and then with --route, causing same
       effect as connection configuration option auto=ondemand.

       The --ready operation tells pluto to listen for connection-setup requests from other hosts. Doing an --up
       operation before doing --ready on both ends is futile and will not work, although this is now automated
       as part of IPsec startup and should not normally be an issue.

       The --status operation asks pluto for current connection status. The output format is ad-hoc and likely
       to change.

       The --rereadsecrets operation tells pluto to re-read the /etc/ipsec.secrets secret-keys file, which it
       normally reads only at startup time. (This is currently a synonym for --ready, but that may change.)

       The --fetchcrls operation reads all certificate revocation list (CRL) entries of loaded certificates and
       tries to fetch updates for these from the CRL servers.

       The --rereadall operation is equivalent to the execution of --rereadsecrets (in the past there were other
       kinds of reread operations)

       The --listpubkeys operation lists all RSA public keys either received from peers via the IKE protocol
       embedded in authenticated certificate payloads or loaded locally using the rightcert / leftcert or
       rightr- sasigkey / leftrsasigkey parameters in ipsec.conf(5).

       The --listcerts operation lists all X.509 certificates loaded locally using the rightcert and leftcert
       parameters in ipsec.conf(5). To see all certificates in the NSS database, use certutil -d
       /var/lib/ipsec/nss -L.

       The --checkpubkeys operation lists all loaded X.509 certificates that are about to expire or have
       expired.

       The --listcacerts operation lists all X.509 CA certificates contained in the NSS database.

       The --listcrls operation lists all Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) either loaded locally from the
       /etc/ipsec.d/crls directory or fetched dynamically from an HTTP or LDAP server.

       The --listall operation is equivalent to the execution of --listpubkeys, --listcerts, --listcacerts,
       --listcrls.

       The --purgeocsp operation displays --listall and purges the NSS OCSP cache.

       The --showonly option causes auto to show the commands it would run, on standard output, and not run
       them.

       The --asynchronous option, applicable only to the up operation, tells pluto to attempt to establish the
       connection, but does not delay to report results. This is especially useful to start multiple connections
       in parallel when network links are slow.

       The --verbose option instructs auto to pass through all output from ipsec_whack(8), including log output
       that is normally filtered out as uninteresting.

       The --config option specifies a non-standard location for the IPsec configuration file (default
       /etc/ipsec.conf).

       See ipsec.conf(5) for details of the configuration file.

FILES

           /etc/ipsec.conf               default IPSEC configuration file
           /var/lib/ipsec/nss            X.509 and Opportunistic Encryption files
           /var/run/pluto/pluto.ctl Pluto command socket

SEE ALSO

       ipsec.conf(5), ipsec(8), ipsec_pluto(8), ipsec_whack(8)

HISTORY

       Originally written for the FreeS/WAN project <https://www.freeswan.org> by Henry Spencer.

BUGS

       Although an --up operation does connection setup on both ends, --down tears only one end of the
       connection down (although the orphaned end will eventually time out).

       There is no support for passthrough connections.

       A connection description that uses %defaultroute for one of its nexthop parameters but not the other may
       be falsely rejected as erroneous in some circumstances.

       The exit status of --showonly does not always reflect errors discovered during processing of the request.
       (This is fine for human inspection, but not so good for use in scripts.)

AUTHOR

       Paul Wouters
           placeholder to suppress warning

libreswan                                          03/31/2024                                      IPSEC_AUTO(8)