[strongSwan-dev] How to start charon without helpers?

[Martin Willi]

Hi,

> Is there any correct way to start charon directly without using ipsec 
> helpers? [...] But how to manually setup connection?

If you want to load ipsec.conf configurations, you'll need the starter
process which invokes charon. 

> I just intresting in using gdb and valgrind, so starting from helper
> can cause a lot of problems.

For gdb, there is a --attach-gdb option for "ipsec start" that invokes
charon under gdb. For valgrind there is no such option, but should be
rather trivial to add such an option.

Alternatively you may consider using a different configuration backend
that does not rely on starter. With the swanctl backend introduced with
5.2.0, you can load configurations at any time for a manually invoked
charon.

Regards
Martin