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IPSEC_AUTO(8) Executable programs IPSEC_AUTO(8) 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 con- figuration file. In the normal usage, connection is the name of a connec- tion 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 exe- cution. The --add operation adds a connection specification to the internal data- base 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 conve- nience for updating pluto's internal specification to match an external one. (Note that a --rereadsecrets may also be needed.) The --start opera- tion 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 con- nection as part of the --up operation. However, the route can be estab- lished 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 de- fault route). Normally, pluto's route to a destination remains in place when a --down op- eration is used to take the connection down (or if connection setup, or later automatic rekeying, fails). This permits establishing a new connec- tion (perhaps using a different specification; the route is altered as nec- essary) 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 /usr/lo- cal/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) en- tries 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 certifi- cates in the NSS database, use certutil -d /usr/local/etc/ipsec.d -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) ei- ther loaded locally from the /etc/ipsec.d/crls directory or fetched dynami- cally 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 re- sults. 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 unin- teresting. The --config option specifies a non-standard location for the IPsec config- uration file (default /etc/ipsec.conf). See ipsec.conf(5) for details of the configuration file. FILES /etc/ipsec.conf default IPSEC configuration file /usr/local/etc/ipsec.d 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 eventu- ally time out). There is no support for passthrough connections. A connection description that uses %defaultroute for one of its nexthop pa- rameters 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 08/01/2026 IPSEC_AUTO(8)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | EXAMPLES | DESCRIPTION | FILES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | BUGS | AUTHOR
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