strongSwan

h1. strongSwan Manager

*strongSwan Manager* is a web application which interacts with the IKEv2 daemon [[charon]] via an XML interface running the [[SMP]] information query and control protocol.

!manager.png!

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*strongSwan Manager is still under heavy development and not intended for production use!*

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h2. Building strongSwan Manager

The manager is based on a FastCGI application and uses the "ClearSilver templating engine":http://www.clearsilver.net/ to build the web sites. Thus you will need

* ClearSilver including headers (Debian: clearsilver-dev)

* FastCGI headers and library (Debian: libfcgi-dev)

* SQLite3 with headers (Debian: libsqlite3-dev)

The FastCGI communicates through a Unix socket, which is group-writable. So the FastCGI user has to be in the group under which the daemon runs.

As you don't want to add that user to group 0, it's highly recommended to run strongSwan under a [[nonRoot|non-root]] group. Create a group for that purpose:

<pre>

groupadd vpn

</pre>

To build the manager, add the following options to ./configure

<pre>

--enable-smp --enable-manager --enable-sqlite --with-group=vpn

</pre>

strongSwan releases prior to 4.2.2 use numerical group IDs, use @--with-gid@ instead.

h2. Setting up Apache 2

As the manager uses FastCGI, any web server may be used to host the application. Here we look at the configuration of Apache2 using _mod-fastcgi_.

In addition to the Apache2 web server itself, you'll need

* mod-fastcgi (Debian: libapache2-mod-fastcgi)

Make sure to enable the new module and that the following fastcgi option is set (e.g. in mods-enabled/fastcgi.conf):

<pre>

AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi

</pre>

Static files are directly served by Apache, everything else is served by the FastCGI application. Add these two lines to your website:

<pre>

Alias /manager/static /usr/local/libexec/ipsec/manager/templates/static

ScriptAlias /manager /usr/local/libexec/ipsec/manager/manager.fcgi

</pre>

Adapt these paths according to your @--prefix@ or @--libexecdir@ [[InstallationDocumentation|installation]] settings.

Now you'll need to add the FastCGI user to group which is used by strongSwan:

<pre>

usermod -a -G vpn www-data

</pre>

This setup is only recommended if you don't run other websites, as it allows the apache user to control strongSwan. You really should consider a more

secure setup (e.g. separate user for Manager, suexec, etc.)!

h2. Configure the manager

The manager uses a small database to do user authorization and gateway management. We have no frontend yet, so you'll need to set up this database yourself. It is tested with SQLite, but MySQL should work if you set up the database properly.

The manager uses the [[StrongswanConf|strongswan.conf]] configuration file installed in your _sysconfdir_ (e.g. _/etc_):

<pre>

manager {

  # path to your database

  database = sqlite:///etc/ipsec.d/manager.db

  # disable libfast debugging

  debug = false

  # number of threads to create in libfast

  threads = 5

  # session timeout

  timeout = 600

  # socket, if you want to run manager on console to debug. No socket lets apache create manager instances

  #socket = /var/lib/apache2/fastcgi/manager

}

</pre>

To create the database tables and some test data, have a look at the SQLite SQL script (see source:src/manager/sqlite.sql). This script creates a user _strongSwan_ with the password _strongSwan_.

To create an SQLite database, use something like:

<pre>

wget http://wiki.strongswan.org/repositories/entry/strongswan/src/manager/sqlite.sql?format=raw -q -O - | sqlite3 /etc/ipsec.d/manager.db

chmod g+w /etc/ipsec.d/manager.db

chgrp vpn /etc/ipsec.d/manager.db

</pre>

The password is hashed in the configuration database. To update it to _USERNAME_ and _PASSWORD_ use something like this (on bash):

<pre>

echo "update users set username = 'USERNAME'", password = "`echo -n "USERNAMEPASSWORD" \

| sha1sum | awk '{ print $1 }'`;" | sqlite3 /etc/ipsec.d/manager.db

</pre>

If for example USERNAME is *foo* and PASSWORD is *barbara8x92* then the entry becomes

<pre>

echo "update users set username = 'foo'", password = "`echo -n "foobarbara8x92" \

| sha1sum | awk '{ print $1 }'`;" | sqlite3 /etc/ipsec.d/manager.db

</pre>

Don't forget to set up write permissions for the apache user.

h2. Logging in

Surf to

<pre>

http://host/manager/status/ikesalist

</pre>

and have fun.