Table of Contents
Advertisement
Virtual Private Networks (VPN)
IPsec
IPsec is a suite of protocols for creating a secure communication link—an IPsec tunnel—between a
host and a remote IP network or between two IP networks across a public network such as the
Internet.
IPsec data protection
IPsec protects the data being sent across a public network by providing the following:
Data origin authentication
Authentication of data to validate the origin of data when it is received.
Data integrity
Authentication of data to ensure it has not been modified during transmission.
Data confidentiality
Encryption of data sent across the IPsec tunnel to ensure that an unauthorized device cannot read
the data.
Anti-Replay
Authentication of data to ensure an unauthorized device has not injected it into the IPsec tunnel.
IPsec modes
IPsec can run in two different modes: Tunnel and Transport.
Tunnel
The entire IP packet is encrypted and/or authenticated and then encapsulated as the payload in a
new IP packet.
Transport
Only the payload of the IP packet is encrypted and/or authenticated. The IP header is left
untouched. This mode has limitations when using an authentication header, because the IP
addresses in the IP header cannot be translated (for example, with Network Address Translation
(NAT), as it would invalidate the authentication hash value.
Internet Key Exchange (IKE) settings
IKE is a key management protocol that allows IPsec to negotiate the security associations (SAs) that
are used to create the secure IPsec tunnel. Both IKEv1 and IKEv2 are supported.
SA negotiations are performed in two phases, known as phase 1 and phase 2.
Phase 1
In phase 1, IKE creates a secure authenticated communication channel between the device and the
peer (the remote device which is at the other end of the IPsec tunnel) using the configured pre-shared
key and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. This creates the IKE SAs that are used to encrypt further IKE
communications.
For IKEv1, there are two modes for the phase 1 negotiation: Main mode and Aggressive mode. IKEv2
does not use these modes.
Main mode
Main mode is the default mode. It is slower than aggressive mode, but more secure, in that all
sensitive information sent between the device and its peer is encrypted.
Aggressive mode
Aggressive mode is faster than main mode, but is not as secure as main mode, because the device
and its peer exchange their IDs and hash information in clear text instead of being encrypted.
Digi Connect IT® Mini User Guide
IPsec
185
Advertisement
Table of Contents
