Interoperating with FreeS/WAN

* PLEASE NOTE * This document is in process. If a section you are looking for is not yet complete, you can use our old interop document.

Interop at a Glance

  FreeS/WAN VPN Road Warrior OE
  PSK RSA Secret X.509
(requires patch)
Manual
Keying
   
More Compatible
isakmpd (OpenBSD)   Yes   Yes Yes   No    
Kame (FreeBSD, NetBSD)   Yes   Yes Yes   No
McAfee VPN
was PGPNet
 
Yes Yes Yes   Yes No
Microsoft
Windows 2000/XP
 
Yes   Yes   with FreeS/WAN
as Warrior
No
SSH Sentinel   Yes   Yes   Yes No
Safenet SoftPK
/SoftRemote
 
Yes   Yes   Yes No
Other
6Wind       Yes     No
Alcatel Timestep   Yes         No
AshleyLaurent
VPCom
 
Yes         No
Borderware   Yes       No No
Check Point FW-1/VPN-1   Yes   Yes   Yes No
Cisco with 3DES   Yes Maybe       No
F-Secure   Yes         No
Gauntlet GVPN   Yes         No
IBM AS/400   Yes         No
Linksys   Maybe   No   Yes No
Lucent   Partial         No
Netasq       Yes     No
netcelo       Yes     No
Netscreen 5xp   Yes       Maybe No
Nortel Conitivity Partial         No
RadGuard   Yes         No
Raptor   Yes     Yes   No
Redcreek Ravlin   Yes/Partial         No
Shiva
LANRover
 
Yes         No
SonicWall   Yes       No No
Sun Solaris         Yes   No
Symantec   Yes         No
Watchguard
Firebox
 
Yes     Yes   No
Xedia Access Point
/QVPN
 
Yes         No
  PSK RSA Secret X.509
(requires patch)
Manual
Keying
   
  FreeS/WAN VPN Road Warrior OE

Our information comes primarily from mailing list reports and tutorials.

The FreeS/WAN project needs you! We rely on the user community to keep up to date. Mail users@lists.freeswan.org with your interop success stories.

Key

Yes People report that this works for them.
[Blank] We don't know.
No We have reason to believe it was, at some point, not possible to get this to work.
Partial Partial success. For example, a connection can be created from one end only.
Yes/Partial Mixed reports.
Maybe We think the answer is "yes", but need confirmation.

Basic Interop Rules

You want to choose X, Y, Z.

Longer Stories

For More Compatible Implementations

isakmpd (OpenBSD)

OpenBSD FAQ: Using IPsec
Hans-Joerg Hoexer's interop Linux-OpenBSD (PSK)
Skyper's configuration (PSK)
French page with configs (X.509)

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Kame for FreeBSD, NetBSD

Kame homepage, with FAQ
NetBSD's IPSec FAQ

Itojun's Kame-FreeS/WAN interop tips (PSK)
Ghislaine Labouret's French page with links to matching FreeS/WAN and Kame configs (RSA)
    Ghislaine's post explaining some peculiarities
Frodo's Kame-FreeS/WAN interop (X.509)
Using Kame as a WAVEsec client

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PGPNet/McAfee

Hans-Joerg Hoexer's Guide for Linux-PGPNet (PSK)
Kai Martius' instructions using RSA Key-Extractor Tool (RSA)
    Christian Zeng's page (RSA) based on Kai's work. English or German.
Oscar Delgado's PDF (X.509, no configs)
Ryan's HOWTO for FreeS/WAN-PGPNet (X.509). Through a Linksys Router with IPsec Passthru enabled.
Jean-Francois Nadeau's Practical Configuration (Road Warrior with PSK)
Wouter Prins' HOWTO (Road Warrior with X.509)

Rekeying problem with FreeS/WAN and older PGPNets

DHCP over IPSEC HOWTO for FreeS/WAN (requires X.509 and dhcprelay patches)

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Microsoft Windows 2000/XP

Jean-Francois Nadeau's Net-net Configuration (PSK)
Telenor's Node-node Config (Transport-mode PSK)
Marcus Mueller's HOWTO using his VPN config tool (X.509). Tool also works with PSK.
Nate Carlson's HOWTO using same tool (Road Warrior with X.509). Unusually, FreeS/WAN is the Road Warrior here.
Oscar Delgado's PDF (X.509, no configs)

Microsoft's page on Win2k TCP/IP security features
Microsoft's Win2k IPsec debugging tips
MS VPN may fall back to 1DES

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SSH Sentinel

SSH's Sentinel-FreeSWAN interop PDF (X.509)
Nadeem Hassan's SUSE-to-Sentinel article (Road warrior with X.509)
Potential problem unless using Legacy Proposal option

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Safenet SoftPK/SoftRemote

Whit Blauvelt's SoftRemote tips
Tim Wilson's tips (X.509)

Jean-Francois Nadeau's Practical Configuration (Road Warrior with PSK)
Terradon Communications' PDF (Road Warrior with PSK)
Seaan.net's PDF (Road Warrior to Subnet, with PSK)
Red Baron Consulting's PDF (Road Warrior with X.509)

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For Other Implementations

6Wind

French page with configs (X.509)

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Alcatel Timestep

Alain Sabban's settings (PSK or PSK road warrior; through static NAT)
Derick Cassidy's configs (PSK)
David Kerry's Timestep settings (PSK)
Kevin Gerbracht's ipsec.conf (X.509)

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AshleyLaurent VPCom

Successful interop report, no details

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Borderware

Philip Reetz' configs (PSK)
Borderware server does not support FreeS/WAN road warriors
Older Borderware may not support Diffie Hellman groups 2, 5

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Check Point VPN-1 or FW-1

AERAsec's Firewall-1 NG site (PSK, X.509, Road Warrior with X.509, other algorithms)
     AERAsec's detailed Check Point-FreeS/WAN support matrix
Checkpoint.com PDF: Linux as a VPN Client to FW-1 (PSK) PhoneBoy's Check Point FAQ (on Check Point only, not FreeS/WAN)

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Cisco

French page with configs for Cisco IOS, PIX and VPN 3000 (X.509)

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F-Secure

Text goes here.

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Gauntlet GVPN

Richard Reiner's ipsec.conf (PSK)
Might work without that pesky firewall... (PSK)

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IBM AS/400

Richard Welty's tips and tricks

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Linksys

As tunnel endpoint

Ken Bantoft's instructions (Road Warrior with PSK)
Nate Carlson's caveats

In IPsec passthrough mode

Sample HOWTO through a Linksys Router
Nadeem Hasan's configs
Brock Nanson's tips

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Lucent

Partial success report; see also the next message in thread

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Netasq

French page with configs (X.509)

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Netcelo

French page with configs (X.509)

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Netscreen

Errol Neal's settings (PSK)
Corey Rogers' configs (PSK, no PFS)
Jordan Share's configs (PSK, 2 subnets, through static NAT)
Set src proxy_id to your protected subnet/mask
French page with ipsec.conf, Netscreen screen shots (X.509, may need to revert to PSK...)

A report of a company using Netscreen with FreeS/WAN on a large scale (FreeS/WAN road warriors?)

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Nortel Conitivity

French page with configs (X.509)

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Radguard

Marko Hausalo's configs (PSK). Note: These do create a connection, as you can see by "IPsec SA established".
Claudia Schmeing's comments

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Raptor (NT or Solaris)

Peter Mazinger's settings (PSK)
Peter Gerland's configs (PSK)
FreeS/WAN 1.5 to Raptor 6.02 on Solaris 2.6 (PSK).
Lumir Srch's tips (PSK)

John Hardy's configs (Manual)
Older Raptors want 3DES keys in 3 parts (Manual).
Different keys for each direction? (Manual)

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Redcreek Ravlin

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Shiva LANRover

Text goes here.

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SonicWall

Wouter's config (PSK)
Dilan Arumainathan's configuration (PSK)
Dariush's setup... only opens one way (PSK)

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Sun Solaris

Text goes here.

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Symantec

Andreas Steffen's configs for Symantec 200R (PSK)

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Watchguard Firebox

WatchGuard's HOWTO (PSK)
Ronald C. Riviera's Settings (PSK)
Max Enders' Configs (Manual)

Old known issue with auto keying
Tips on key generation and format (Manual)

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Xedia Access Point/QVPN

Hybrid IPsec/L2TP connection settings (X.509)
Xedia's LAN-LAN links don't use multiple tunnels
     That explanation, continued

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