[strongSwan] Cipher Suite proposals changed in the course of 5.6.0 to 5.6.2

[Noel Kuntze]

Hello,

I know that everything looks like a nail, if you only got a hammer, but you only needed to add a corresponding ike and/or esp line in ipsec.conf to configure the right ciphers for that particular IKE SA configuration. The ciphers were removed because they were insecure and now there's an RFC for that. Take a look at the UsableExamples page.

Kind regards

Noel

On 18.03.2018 23:48, Dr. Rolf Jansen wrote:
> I am still using an iPhone 4 with iOS 7.1.2 which cannot be updated to a more recent iOS.
>
> When I am on travel, I use the builtin L2TP/IPsec client in order to connect to my FreeBSD home server providing the respective VPN service via net/mpd5 + security/strongswan (both of which are installed from the ports collection).
>
> After a recent update from strongSwan 5.6.0 to v5.6.2, my iPhone 4 cannot connect anymore. In the server's log I see:
>
> Mar 18 18:33:05 example charon: 15[CFG] received proposals: IKE:AES_CBC_256/HMAC_SHA1_96/PRF_HMAC_SHA1/MODP_1024, IKE:AES_CBC_256/HMAC_MD5_96/PRF_HMAC_MD5/MODP_1024, IKE:AES_CBC_128/HMAC_SHA1_96/PRF_HMAC_SHA1/MODP_1024, IKE:AES_CBC_128/HMAC_MD5_96/PRF_HMAC_MD5/MODP_1024, IKE:3DES_CBC/HMAC_SHA1_96/PRF_HMAC_SHA1/MODP_1024, IKE:3DES_CBC/HMAC_MD5_96/PRF_HMAC_MD5/MODP_1024
> Mar 18 18:33:05 example charon: 15[CFG] configured proposals: IKE:AES_GCM_16_128/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_256/MODP_3072, IKE:AES_CBC_128/AES_CBC_192/AES_CBC_256/CAMELLIA_CBC_128/CAMELLIA_CBC_192/CAMELLIA_CBC_256/3DES_CBC/HMAC_SHA2_256_128/HMAC_SHA2_384_192/HMAC_SHA2_512_256/HMAC_SHA1_96/AES_XCBC_96/AES_CMAC_96/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_256/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_384/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_512/PRF_AES128_XCBC/PRF_AES128_CMAC/PRF_HMAC_SHA1/ECP_256/ECP_384/ECP_521/ECP_256_BP/ECP_384_BP/ECP_512_BP/CURVE_25519/MODP_3072/MODP_4096/MODP_6144/MODP_8192/MODP_2048, IKE:AES_GCM_16_128/AES_GCM_16_192/AES_GCM_16_256/AES_GCM_12_128/AES_GCM_12_192/AES_GCM_12_256/AES_GCM_8_128/AES_GCM_8_192/AES_GCM_8_256/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_256/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_384/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_512/PRF_AES128_XCBC/PRF_AES128_CMAC/PRF_HMAC_SHA1/ECP_256/ECP_384/ECP_521/ECP_256_BP/ECP_384_BP/ECP_512_BP/CURVE_25519/MODP_3072/MODP_4096/MODP_6144/MODP_8192/MODP_2048
> Mar 18 18:33:05 example charon: 15[IKE] no proposal found
>
>
> I dug into the strongSwan sources, and I found, that some ciphers were disabled. As a hot fix I added on my FreeBSD server a patch file to /usr/ports/security/strongswan/files/patch-zz-add-classic-ciphers.local (s. attachment), then I executed make deinstall install clean. For the time being, this restored the iPhone 4 L2TP/IPsec connectivity.
>
> I know the iPhone 4 is almost 8 years old, however, mine looks like I bought it yesterday, and the battery is still in a perfect shape, and I don't want to buy a new one in the foreseeable future. Please may I ask to pick the best cipher from the above list which iOS 7.1.2 is aware of, and add it to the list of proposals which strongSwan wants to accept.
>
> Best regards
>
> Rolf Jansen
>

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