Chapter 14 – IPsec VPN

Whats new in FortiOS 5.4

 

IKE/IPsec Extended Sequence Number (ESN) support (255144)

This feature implements negotiation of 64-bit Extended Sequence numbers as described in RFC 4303, RFC 4304 as an addition to IKEv1, and RFC 5996 for IKEv2.

 

Updates and enhancements to the IPsec VPN wizard (222339 290377 287021 289251)

The IPsec VPN wizard has been simplified to more clearly identify tunnel template types, remote device types, and NAT configuration requirements. Example topological diagrams are now also included.

vpn-creation-wizard

 

 

 

New Dialup – FortiGate and Dialup – Windows (Native L2TP/IPsec) tunnel template options.

Cisco compatible keep-alive support for GRE (261595)

The FortiGate can now send a GRE keep-alive response to a Cisco device to detect a GRE tunnel. If it fails, it will remove any routes over the GRE interface.

 

Syntax

config system gre-tunnel edit <id>

set keepalive-interval <value: 0-32767>

set keepalive-failtimes <value: 1-255>

next end

 

Repeated Authentication in Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) Protocol (282025)

This feature provides the option to control whether a device requires its peer to re-authenticate or whether re-key is sufficient. It does not influence the re-authentication or re-key behavior of the device itself, which is controlled by the peer (with the default being to re-key).

This solution is in response to RFC 4478. As described by the IETF, “the purpose of this is to limit the time that security associations (SAs) can be used by a third party who has gained control of the IPsec peer”.

 

Syntax

config vpn ipsec phase1-interface edit p1

set reauth [enable | disable]

next end

 

Improvements to IPsec VPN in ADVPN hub-and-spoke (275322)

IPsec VPN traffic is now allowed through a tunnel between an ADVPN hub-and-spoke config vpn ipsec phase1-interface edit “int-fgtb”

set auto-discovery-sender [enable | disable] set auto-discovery-receiver [enable | disable] set auto-discovery-forwarder [enable | disable]

… next

end

config vpn ipsec phase2-interface edit “int-fgtb”

set auto-discovery-sender phase1 [enable | disable]

… next

end

 

ADVPN support for NAT device (299798)

The ADVPN feature has been extended so that it allows ADVPN shortcuts to be negotiated as long as one of the devices is not behind NAT.

The on-the-wire format of the ADVPN messages was changed so that they use TLV encoding. Since the on-the- wire format has changed this is not compatible with any previous ADVPN builds.

 

AESGCM support (281822)

AES-GCM (128 | 256) AEAD has been added, as specified in RFC 4106:

config vpn ipsec phase1-interface edit “tofgta”

set suite-b disable | suite-b-gcm-128 | suite-b-gcm-256

… next

end

config vpn ipsec phase2-interface edit “tofgta”

set phase1name “tofgta”

set proposal aes128gcm aes256gcm

… next

end

 

IPsec tunnel idle timer (244180)

Add a command to define an idle timer for IPsec tunnels when no traffic has passed through the tunnel for the configured idle-timeout value, the IPsec tunnel will be flushed.

config vpn ipsec phase1-interface edit p1

set idle-timeout enable/disable

set idle-timeoutinterval <integer> //IPsec tunnel idle timeout in minutes (10 – 43200).

end end

 

SAs negotiation improvement (245872)

The IPsec SA connect message generated is used to install dynamic selectors. These selectors can now be installed via the auto-negotiate mechanism. When phase 2 has auto-negotiate enabled, and phase 1 has mesh- selector-type set to subnet, a new dynamic selector will be installed for each combination of source and destination subnets. Each dynamic selector will inherit the auto-negotiate option from the template selector and begin SA negotiation. Phase 2 selector sources from dial-up clients will all establish SAs without traffic being initiated from the client subnets to the hub.

 

Add VXLAN over IPsec (265556)

Packets with VXLAN header are encapsulated within IPsec tunnel mode. New attributes in IPsec phase1 settings have been added.

config vpn ipsec phase1-interface/phase1 edit ipsec

set interface <name>

set encapsulation vxlan/gre (new)

set encapsulation-address ike/ipv4/ipv6 (New)

set encap-local-gw4 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (New)

set encap-remote-gw xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (New)

next end

 

Ability to enable/disable IPsec ASIC-offloading (269555)

Much like NPU-offload in IKE phase1 configuration, this feature enables/disables the usage of ASIC hardware for IPsec Diffie-Hellman key exchange and IPsec ESP traffic. Currently by default hardware offloading is used. For debugging purposes, sometimes we want all the traffic to be processed by software.

config sys global

set ipsec-asic-offload [enable | disable]

end

 

Added an option to force IPsec to use NAT Traversal (275010)

Added a new option for NAT. If NAT is set to Forced, then the FGT will use a port value of zero when constructing the NAT discovery hash for the peer. This causes the peer to think it is behind a NAT device, and it will use UDP encapsulation for IPsec, even if no NAT is present. This approach maintains interoperability with any IPsec implementation that supports the NAT-T RFC.

Add a feature to support IKEv2 Session Resumption described in RFC 5723 (289914)

If a gateway loses connectivity to the network, clients can attempt to re-establish the lost session by presenting the ticket to the gateway. As a result, sessions can be resumed much faster, as DH exchange that is necessary to establish a brand new connection is skipped. This feature implements “ticket-by-value”, whereby all information necessary to restore the state of a particular IKE SA is stored in the ticket and sent to the client.

 

Added support for IKEv2 Quick Crash Detection (298970)

A new feature has been added to support IKEv2 Quick Crash Detection as described in RFC 6290.

RFC 6290 describes a method in which an IKE peer can quickly detect that the gateway peer that it has and established IKE session with, has rebooted, crashed, or otherwise lost IKE state. When the gateway receives IKE messages or ESP packets with unknown IKE or IPsec SPIs, the IKEv2 protocol allows the gateway to send the peer an unprotected IKE message containing INVALID_IKE_SPI or INVALID_SPI notification payloads.

RFC 6290 introduces the concept of a QCD token, which is generated from the IKE SPIs and a private QCD secret, and exchanged between peers during the protected IKE AUTH exchange.

 

CLI Syntax

config system settings

set ike-quick-crash-detect [enable | disable]

end

 

Remove support for IPsec auto-discovery VPN (300893)

IPsec auto-VPN support (auto-IPsec) has been removed. This feature was added in FortiOS 5.0 prior to any usable VPN creation support on the GUI. As of 5.2, and now in 5.4, the wizard solves many of the problems introduced by the auto-IPsec feature, and so auto-IPsec has been deprecated.

 

Improved scalability for IPsec DPD (292500)

On a dial-up server, if a multitude of VPN connections are idle, the increased DPD exchange could negatively impact the performance/load of the daemon. For this reason, an option has been added to send DPD passively in a mode called “on-demand”.

config vpn ipsec phase1-interface edit <value>

set dpd [disable | on-idle | on-demand]

next end

 

Notes

  • When there is no traffic and the last DPD-ACK had been received, IKE will not send DPDs periodically.
  • IKE will only send out DPDs if there are outgoing packets to send but no inbound packets had since been received.

 

Syntax

The set dpd enable command has changed to set dpd on-idle (to trigger DPD when IPsec is idle). Set DPD to on-demand to trigger DPD when IPsec traffic is sent but no reply is received from the peer.

configure vpn ipsec phase1-interface edit <value>

set dpd [on-idle|on-demand]

next end

 

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About Mike

Michael Pruett, CISSP has a wide range of cyber-security and network engineering expertise. The plethora of vendors that resell hardware but have zero engineering knowledge resulting in the wrong hardware or configuration being deployed is a major pet peeve of Michael's. This site was started in an effort to spread information while providing the option of quality consulting services at a much lower price than Fortinet Professional Services. Owns PacketLlama.Com (Fortinet Hardware Sales) and Office Of The CISO, LLC (Cybersecurity consulting firm).

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