ViewVC Help
View File | Revision Log | Show Annotations | Download File
/cvs/gvpe/doc/gvpe.conf.5.pod
Revision: 1.12
Committed: Wed Mar 23 17:03:58 2005 UTC (19 years, 2 months ago) by pcg
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.11: +52 -0 lines
Log Message:
*** empty log message ***

File Contents

# Content
1 =head1 NAME
2
3 gvpe.conf - configuration file for the GNU VPE daemon
4
5 =head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7 udp-port = 407
8 mtu = 1492
9 ifname = vpn0
10
11 node = branch1
12 hostname = 1.2.3.4
13
14 node = branch2
15 hostname = www.example.net
16 udp-port = 500 # this host uses a different udp-port
17
18 node = branch3
19 connect = ondemand
20
21 =head1 DESCRIPTION
22
23 The gvpe config file consists of a series of lines that contain C<variable
24 = value> pairs. Empty lines are ignored. Comments start with a C<#> and
25 extend to the end of the line. They can be used on their own lines, or
26 after any directives. Spaces are allowed before or after the C<=> sign or
27 after values, but not within the variable names or values themselves.
28
29 The only exception to the above is the "on" directive that can prefix any
30 C<name = value> setting and will only "execute" it on the named node, or
31 (if the nodename starts with "!") on all nodes except the named one.
32
33 name = value
34 on branch1 loglevel = noise
35 on !branch2 connect = ondemand
36
37 All settings are executed "in order", that is, later settings of the same
38 variable overwrite earlier ones.
39
40 =head1 ANATOMY OF A CONFIG FILE
41
42 Usually, a config file starts with global settings (like the udp port to
43 listen on), followed by node-specific sections that begin with a C<node =
44 nickname> line.
45
46 Every node that is part of the network must have a section that starts
47 with C<node = nickname>. The number and order of the nodes is important
48 and must be the same on all hosts. It is not uncommon for node sections to
49 be completely empty - if the default values are right.
50
51 Node-specific settings can be used at any time. If used before the first
52 node section they will set the default values for all following nodes.
53
54 =head1 CONFIG VARIABLES
55
56 =head2 GLOBAL SETTINGS
57
58 Global settings will affect the behaviour of the running gvpe daemon, that
59 is, they are in some sense node-specific (config files can set different
60 values on different nodes using C<on>), but will affect the behaviour of
61 the gvpe daemon and all connections it creates.
62
63 =over 4
64
65 =item dns-forw-host = hostname/ip
66
67 The dns server to forward dns requests to for the DNS tunnel protocol
68 (default: C<127.0.0.1>, changing it is highly recommended).
69
70 =item dns-forw-port = port-number
71
72 The port where the C<dns-forw-host> is to be contacted (default: C<53>,
73 which is fine in most cases).
74
75 =item dns-max-outstanding = integer-number-of-requests
76
77 The maximum number of outstanding DNS transport requests
78 (default: C<100>). GVPE will never issue more requests then the given
79 limit without receiving replies. In heavily overloaded situations it might
80 help to set this to a low number (e.g. C<3> or even C<1>) to limit the
81 number of parallel requests.
82
83 The default should be working ok for most links.
84
85 =item dns-overlap-factor = float
86
87 The DNS transport uses the minimum request latency (B<min_latency>) seen
88 during a connection as it's timing base. This factor (default: C<0.5>,
89 must be > 0) is multiplied by B<min_latency> to get the maximum sending
90 rate (= minimum send interval), i.e. a factor of C<1> means that a new
91 request might be generated every B<min_latency> seconds, which means on
92 average there should only ever be one outstanding request. A factor of
93 C<0.5> means that GVPE will send requests twice as often as the minimum
94 latency measured.
95
96 For congested or picky dns forwarders you could use a value nearer to or
97 exceeding C<1>.
98
99 The default should be working ok for most links.
100
101 =item dns-send-interval = send-interval-in-seconds
102
103 The minimum send interval (= maximum rate) that the DNS transport will
104 use to send new DNS requests. GVPE will not exceed this rate even when
105 the latency is very low. The default is C<0.01>, which means GVPE will
106 not send more than 100 DNS requests per connection per second. For
107 high-bandwidth links you could go lower, e.g. to C<0.001> or so. For
108 congested or rate-limited links, you might want to go higher, say C<0.1>,
109 C<0.2> or even higher.
110
111 The default should be working ok for most links.
112
113 =item dns-timeout-factor = float
114
115 Factor to multiply the C<min_latency> (see C<dns-overlap-factor>) by to
116 get request timeouts. The default of C<8> means that the DNS transport
117 will resend the request when no reply has been received for longer than
118 eight times the minimum (= expected) latency, assuming the request or
119 reply has been lost.
120
121 For congested links a higher value might be necessary (e.g. C<30>). If the
122 link is very stable lower values (e.g. C<2>) might work nicely. Values
123 near or below C<1> makes no sense whatsoever.
124
125 The default should be working ok for most links.
126
127 =item if-up = relative-or-absolute-path
128
129 Sets the path of a script that should be called immediately after the
130 network interface is initialized (but not neccessarily up). The following
131 environment variables are passed to it (the values are just examples):
132
133 =over 4
134
135 =item CONFBASE=/etc/gvpe
136
137 The configuration base directory.
138
139 =item IFNAME=vpn0
140
141 The interface to initialize.
142
143 =item MTU=1436
144
145 The MTU to set the interface to. You can use lower values (if done
146 consistently on all hosts), but this is usually ineffective.
147
148 =item MAC=fe:fd:80:00:00:01
149
150 The MAC address to set the interface to. The script *must* set the
151 interface MAC to this value. You will most likely use one of these:
152
153 ip link set $IFNAME address $MAC mtu $MTU up # GNU/Linux
154 ifconfig $IFNAME ether $MAC mtu $MTU up # FreeBSD
155
156 Please see the C<gvpe.osdep(5)> manpage for platform-specific information.
157
158 =item IFTYPE=native # or tincd
159
160 =item IFSUBTYPE=linux # or freebsd, darwin etc..
161
162 The interface type (C<native> or C<tincd>) and the subtype (usually the os
163 name in lowercase) that this gvpe was configured for. Can be used to select
164 the correct syntax to use for network-related commands.
165
166 =item NODENAME=branch1
167
168 The nickname of the current node, as passed to the gvpe daemon.
169
170 =item NODEID=1
171
172 The numerical node id of the current node. The first node mentioned in the
173 config file gets ID 1, the second ID 2 and so on.
174
175 =back
176
177 Here is a simple if-up script:
178
179 #!/bin/sh
180 ip link set $IFNAME address $MAC mtu $MTU up
181 [ $NODENAME = branch1 ] && ip addr add 10.0.0.1 dev $IFNAME
182 [ $NODENAME = branch2 ] && ip addr add 10.1.0.1 dev $IFNAME
183 ip route add 10.0.0.0/8 dev $IFNAME
184
185 More complicated examples (using routing to reduce arp traffic) can be
186 found in the etc/ subdirectory of the distribution.
187
188 =item ifname = devname
189
190 Sets the tun interface name to the given name. The default is OS-specific
191 and most probably something like C<tun0>.
192
193 =item ifpersist = yes|true|on | no|false|off
194
195 Should the tun/tap device be made persistent, that is, should the device
196 stay up even when gvpe exits? Some versions of the tunnel device have
197 problems sending packets when gvpe is restarted in persistent mode, so
198 if the connections can be established but you cannot send packets from
199 the local node, try to set this to C<off> and do an ifconfig down on the
200 device.
201
202 =item ip-proto = numerical-ip-protocol
203
204 Sets the protocol number to be used for the rawip protocol. This is a
205 global option because all hosts must use the same protocol, and since
206 there are no port numbers, you cannot easily run more than one gvpe
207 instance using the same protocol, nor can you share the protocol with
208 other programs.
209
210 The default is 47 (GRE), which has a good chance of tunneling through
211 firewalls (but note that the rawip protocol is not GRE compatible). Other
212 common choices are 50 (IPSEC, ESP), 51 (IPSEC, AH), 4 (IPIP tunnels) or 98
213 (ENCAP, rfc1241)
214
215 =item http-proxy-host = hostname/ip
216
217 The C<http-proxy-*> family of options are only available if gvpe was
218 compiled with the C<--enable-http-proxy> option and enable tunneling of
219 tcp connections through a http proxy server.
220
221 C<http-proxy-host> and C<http-proxy-port> should specify the hostname and
222 port number of the proxy server. See C<http-proxy-loginpw> if your proxy
223 requires authentication.
224
225 Please note that gvpe will still try to resolve all hostnames in the
226 configuration file, so if you are behind a proxy without access to a dns
227 server better use numerical IP addresses.
228
229 To make best use of this option disable all protocols except tcp in your
230 config file and make sure your routers (or all other hosts) are listening
231 on a port that the proxy allows (443, https, is a common choice).
232
233 If you have a router, connecting to it will suffice. Otherwise tcp must be
234 enabled on all hosts.
235
236 Example:
237
238 http-proxy-host = proxy.example.com
239 http-proxy-port = 3128 # 8080 is another common choice
240 http-proxy-auth = schmorp:grumbeere
241
242 =item http-proxy-port = proxy-tcp-port
243
244 The port where your proxy server listens.
245
246 =item http-proxy-auth = login:password
247
248 The optional login and password used to authenticate to the proxy server,
249 seperated by a literal colon (C<:>). Only basic authentication is
250 currently supported.
251
252 =item keepalive = seconds
253
254 Sets the keepalive probe interval in seconds (default: C<60>). After this
255 many seconds of inactivity the daemon will start to send keepalive probe
256 every 5 seconds until it receives a reply from the other end. If no reply
257 is received within 30 seconds, the peer is considered unreachable and the
258 connection is closed.
259
260 =item loglevel = noise|trace|debug|info|notice|warn|error|critical
261
262 Set the logging level. Connection established messages are logged at level
263 C<info>, notable errors are logged with C<error>. Default is C<info>.
264
265 =item mtu = bytes
266
267 Sets the maximum MTU that should be used on outgoing packets (basically
268 the MTU of the outgoing interface) The daemon will automatically calculate
269 maximum overhead (e.g. udp header size, encryption blocksize...) and pass
270 this information to the C<if-up> script.
271
272 Recommended values are 1500 (ethernet), 1492 (pppoe), 1472 (pptp).
273
274 This value must be the minimum of the mtu values of all hosts.
275
276 =item node = nickname
277
278 Not really a config setting but introduces a node section. The nickname is
279 used to select the right configuration section and must be passed as an
280 argument to the gvpe daemon.
281
282 =item node-up = relative-or-absolute-path
283
284 Sets a command (default: no script) that should be called whenever a
285 connection is established (even on rekeying operations). In addition
286 to the variables passed to C<if-up> scripts, the following environment
287 variables will be set:
288
289 =over 4
290
291 =item DESTNODE=branch2
292
293 The name of the remote node.
294
295 =item DESTID=2
296
297 The node id of the remote node.
298
299 =item DESTIP=188.13.66.8
300
301 The numerical IP address of the remote host (gvpe accepts connections from
302 everywhere, as long as the other host can authenticate itself).
303
304 =item DESTPORT=655 # deprecated
305
306 The UDP port used by the other side.
307
308 =item STATE=UP
309
310 Node-up scripts get called with STATE=UP, node-down scripts get called
311 with STATE=DOWN.
312
313 =back
314
315 Here is a nontrivial example that uses nsupdate to update the name => ip
316 mapping in some dns zone:
317
318 #!/bin/sh
319 {
320 echo update delete $DESTNODE.lowttl.example.net. a
321 echo update add $DESTNODE.lowttl.example.net. 1 in a $DESTIP
322 echo
323 } | nsupdate -d -k $CONFBASE:key.example.net.
324
325 =item node-down = relative-or-absolute-path
326
327 Same as C<node-up>, but gets called whenever a connection is lost.
328
329 =item pid-file = path
330
331 The path to the pid file to check and create
332 (default: C<LOCALSTATEDIR/run/gvpe.pid>).
333
334 =item private-key = relative-path-to-key
335
336 Sets the path (relative to the config directory) to the private key
337 (default: C<hostkey>). This is a printf format string so every C<%> must
338 be doubled. A single C<%s> is replaced by the hostname, so you could
339 use paths like C<hostkeys/%s> to fetch the files at the location where
340 C<gvpectrl> puts them.
341
342 Since only the private key file of the current node is used and the
343 private key file should be kept secret per-host to avoid spoofings, it is
344 not recommended to use this feature.
345
346 =item rekey = seconds
347
348 Sets the rekeying interval in seconds (default: C<3600>). Connections are
349 reestablished every C<rekey> seconds.
350
351 =back
352
353 =head2 NODE SPECIFIC SETTINGS
354
355 The following settings are node-specific, that is, every node can have
356 different settings, even within the same gvpe instance. Settings that are
357 executed before the first node section set the defaults, settings that are
358 executed within a node section only apply to the given node.
359
360 =over 4
361
362 =item compress = yes|true|on | no|false|off
363
364 Wether to compress data packets sent to this host (default: C<yes>).
365 Compression is really cheap even on slow computers and has no size
366 overhead at all, so enabling this is a good idea.
367
368 =item connect = ondemand | never | always | disabled
369
370 Sets the connect mode (default: C<always>). It can be C<always> (always
371 try to establish and keep a connection to the given host), C<never>
372 (never initiate a connection to the given host, but accept connections),
373 C<ondemand> (try to establish a connection on the first packet sent, and
374 take it down after the keepalive interval) or C<disabled> (node is bad,
375 don't talk to it).
376
377 =item dns-domain = domain-suffix
378
379 The DNS domain suffix that points to the DNS tunnel server for this node.
380
381 The domain must point to a NS record that points to the I<dns-hostname>,
382 i.e.
383
384 dns-domainname = tunnel.example.net
385 dns-hostname = tunnel-server.example.net
386
387 Corresponds to the following DNS entries in the C<example.net> domain:
388
389 tunnel.example.net. NS tunnel-server.example.net.
390 tunnel-server.example.net. A 13.13.13.13
391
392 =item dns-hostname = hostname/ip
393
394 The address to bind the DNS tunnel socket to, similar to the C<hostname>,
395 but for the DNS tunnel protocol only. Default: C<0.0.0.0>, but that might
396 change.
397
398 =item dns-port = port-number
399
400 The port to bind the DNS tunnel socket to. Must be C<53> on DNS tunnel servers.
401
402 =item enable-dns = yes|true|on | no|false|off
403
404 See gvpe.protocol(7) for a description of the DNS transport
405 protocol. Avoid this protocol if you can.
406
407 Enable the DNS tunneling protocol on this node, either as server or as
408 client. Support for this transport protocol is only available when gvpe
409 was compiled using the C<--enable-dns> option.
410
411 =item enable-icmp = yes|true|on | no|false|off
412
413 See gvpe.protocol(7) for a description of the ICMP transport protocol.
414
415 Enable the ICMP transport using icmp packets of type C<icmp-type> on this
416 node.
417
418 =item enable-rawip = yes|true|on | no|false|off
419
420 See gvpe.protocol(7) for a description of the RAW IP transport protocol.
421
422 Enable the RAW IPv4 transport using the C<ip-proto> protocol
423 (default: C<no>).
424
425 =item enable-tcp = yes|true|on | no|false|off
426
427 See gvpe.protocol(7) for a description of the TCP transport protocol.
428
429 Enable the TCPv4 transport using the C<tcp-port> port
430 (default: C<no>). Support for this transport protocol is only available
431 when gvpe was compiled using the C<--enable-tcp> option.
432
433 =item enable-udp = yes|true|on | no|false|off
434
435 See gvpe.protocol(7) for a description of the UDP transport protocol.
436
437 Enable the UDPv4 transport using the C<udp-port> port (default: C<no>,
438 unless no other protocol is enabled for a node, in which case this
439 protocol is enabled automatically).
440
441 NOTE: Please specify C<enable-udp = yes> if you want t use it even though
442 it might get switched on automatically, as some future version might
443 default to another default protocol.
444
445 =item icmp-type = integer
446
447 Sets the type value to be used for outgoing (and incoming) packets sent
448 via the ICMP transport.
449
450 The default is C<0> (which is C<echo-reply>, also known as
451 "ping-replies"). Other useful values include C<8> (C<echo-request>, a.k.a.
452 "ping") and C<11> (C<time-exceeded>), but any 8-bit value can be used.
453
454 =item inherit-tos = yes|true|on | no|false|off
455
456 Wether to inherit the TOS settings of packets sent to the tunnel when
457 sending packets to this node (default: C<yes>). If set to C<yes> then
458 outgoing tunnel packets will have the same TOS setting as the packets sent
459 to the tunnel device, which is usually what you want.
460
461 =item max-retry = positive-number
462
463 The maximum interval in seconds (default: C<3600>, one hour) between
464 retries to establish a connection to this node. When a connection cannot
465 be established, gvpe uses exponential backoff capped at this value. It's
466 sometimes useful to set this to a much lower value (e.g. C<120>) on
467 connections to routers that usually are stable but sometimes are down, to
468 assure quick reconnections even after longer downtimes.
469
470 =item router-priority = 0 | 1 | positive-number>=2
471
472 Sets the router priority of the given host (default: C<0>, disabled). If
473 some host tries to connect to another host without a hostname, it asks
474 the router host for it's IP address. The router host is the one with the
475 highest priority larger than C<1> that is currently reachable.
476
477 Make sure all hosts always connect (C<connect = always>) to the router
478 hosts, otherwise connecting to them might be impossible.
479
480 The special value C<1> allows other hosts to route through the router
481 host, but they will never route through it by default. The value C<0>
482 disables routing. The idea behind this is that some hosts can, if
483 required, bump the C<router-priority> setting to higher than C<1> in their
484 local config to route through specific hosts. If C<router-priority> is
485 C<0>, then routing will be refused, so C<1> serves as a "enable, but do
486 not use by default" switch.
487
488 =item tcp-port = port-number
489
490 Similar to C<udp-port> (default: C<655>), but sets the TCP port number.
491
492 =item udp-port = port-number
493
494 Sets the port number used by the UDP protocol (default: C<655>, not
495 officially assigned by IANA!).
496
497 =back
498
499 =head1 CONFIG DIRECTORY LAYOUT
500
501 The default (or recommended) directory layout for the config directory is:
502
503 =over 4
504
505 =item X<gvpe.conf>
506
507 The config file.
508
509 =item X<if-up>
510
511 The if-up script
512
513 =item X<node-up>, X<node-down>
514
515 If used the node up or node-down scripts.
516
517 =item X<hostkey>
518
519 The private key (taken from C<hostkeys/nodename>) of the current host.
520
521 =item X<pubkey/nodename>
522
523 The public keys of the other nodes, one file per node.
524
525 =back
526
527 =head1 SEE ALSO
528
529 gvpe(5), gvpe(8), gvpectrl(8).
530
531 =head1 AUTHOR
532
533 Marc Lehmann <gvpe@plan9.de>
534