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Revision: 1.2
Committed: Tue Mar 15 19:23:33 2005 UTC (19 years, 2 months ago) by pcg
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.1: +48 -20 lines
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# User Rev Content
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131     .IX Title "GVPE.PROTOCOL 7"
132 pcg 1.2 .TH GVPE.PROTOCOL 7 "2005-03-15" "1.8" "GNU Virtual Private Ethernet"
133     .SH "The GNU-VPE Protocols"
134     .IX Header "The GNU-VPE Protocols"
135     .SH "Overview"
136     .IX Header "Overview"
137     \&\s-1GVPE\s0 can make use of a number of protocols. One of them is the \s-1GNU\s0 \s-1VPE\s0
138     protocol which is used to authenticate tunnels and send encrypted data
139     packets. This protocol is described in more detail the second part of this
140     document.
141     .PP
142     The first part of this document describes the transport protocols which
143     are used by \s-1GVPE\s0 to send it's data packets over the network.
144     .SH "PART 1: Tansport protocols"
145     .IX Header "PART 1: Tansport protocols"
146     .Sh "\s-1RAW\s0 \s-1IP\s0"
147     .IX Subsection "RAW IP"
148     .Sh "\s-1ICMP\s0"
149     .IX Subsection "ICMP"
150     .Sh "\s-1UDP\s0"
151     .IX Subsection "UDP"
152     .Sh "\s-1TCP\s0"
153     .IX Subsection "TCP"
154     .Sh "\s-1DNS\s0"
155     .IX Subsection "DNS"
156     .SH "PART 2: The GNU VPE protocol"
157     .IX Header "PART 2: The GNU VPE protocol"
158     This section, unfortunately, is not yet finished, although the protocol
159     is stable (until bugs in the cryptography are found, which will likely
160     completely change the following description). Nevertheless, it should give
161     you some overview over the protocol.
162 pcg 1.1 .Sh "Anatomy of a \s-1VPN\s0 packet"
163     .IX Subsection "Anatomy of a VPN packet"
164     The exact layout and field lengths of a \s-1VPN\s0 packet is determined at
165     compiletime and doesn't change. The same structure is used for all
166 pcg 1.2 transort protocols, be it \s-1RAWIP\s0 or \s-1TCP\s0.
167 pcg 1.1 .PP
168     .Vb 3
169     \& +------+------+--------+------+
170     \& | HMAC | TYPE | SRCDST | DATA |
171     \& +------+------+--------+------+
172     .Ve
173     .PP
174     The \s-1HMAC\s0 field is present in all packets, even if not used (e.g. in auth
175     request packets), in which case it is set to all zeroes. The checksum
176 pcg 1.2 itself is calculated over the \s-1TYPE\s0, \s-1SRCDST\s0 and \s-1DATA\s0 fields in all cases.
177 pcg 1.1 .PP
178     The \s-1TYPE\s0 field is a single byte and determines the purpose of the packet
179     (e.g. \s-1RESET\s0, \s-1COMPRESSED/UNCOMPRESSED\s0 \s-1DATA\s0, \s-1PING\s0, \s-1AUTH\s0 \s-1REQUEST/RESPONSE\s0,
180     \&\s-1CONNECT\s0 \s-1REQUEST/INFO\s0 etc.).
181     .PP
182     \&\s-1SRCDST\s0 is a three byte field which contains the source and destination
183     node ids (12 bits each). The protocol does not yet scale well beyond 30+
184 pcg 1.2 hosts, since all hosts must connect to each other once on startup. But if
185     restarts are rare or tolerable and most connections are on demand, much
186     larger networks are feasible.
187 pcg 1.1 .PP
188     The \s-1DATA\s0 portion differs between each packet type, naturally, and is the
189     only part that can be encrypted. Data packets contain more fields, as
190     shown:
191     .PP
192     .Vb 3
193     \& +------+------+--------+------+-------+------+
194     \& | HMAC | TYPE | SRCDST | RAND | SEQNO | DATA |
195     \& +------+------+--------+------+-------+------+
196     .Ve
197     .PP
198     \&\s-1RAND\s0 is a sequence of fully random bytes, used to increase the entropy of
199     the data for encryption purposes.
200     .PP
201     \&\s-1SEQNO\s0 is a 32\-bit sequence number. It is negotiated at every connection
202     initialization and starts at some random 31 bit value. \s-1VPE\s0 currently uses
203 pcg 1.2 a sliding window of 512 packets/sequence numbers to detect reordering,
204     duplication and reply attacks.
205 pcg 1.1 .Sh "The authentification protocol"
206     .IX Subsection "The authentification protocol"
207     Before hosts can exchange packets, they need to establish authenticity of
208     the other side and a key. Every host has a private \s-1RSA\s0 key and the public
209     \&\s-1RSA\s0 keys of all other hosts.
210     .PP
211     A host establishes a simplex connection by sending the other host a
212     \&\s-1RSA\s0 encrypted challenge containing a random challenge (consisting of
213     the encryption key to use when sending packets, more random data and
214     \&\s-1PKCS1_OAEP\s0 padding) and a random 16 byte \*(L"challenge\-id\*(R" (used to detect
215     duplicate auth packets). The destination host will respond by replying
216     with an (unencrypted) \s-1RIPEMD160\s0 hash of the decrypted challenge, which
217     will authentify that host. The destination host will also set the outgoing
218     encryption parameters as given in the packet.
219     .PP
220     When the source host receives a correct auth reply (by verifying the
221     hash and the id, which will expire after 120 seconds), it will start to
222     accept data packets from the destination host.
223     .PP
224     This means that a host can only initate a simplex connection, telling the
225     other side the key it has to use when it sends packets. The challenge
226 pcg 1.2 reply is only used to set the current \s-1IP\s0 address of the other side and
227     protocol parameters.
228 pcg 1.1 .PP
229 pcg 1.2 This protocol is completely symmetric, so to be able to send packets the
230     destination host must send a challenge in the exact same way as already
231     described (so, in essence, two simplex connections are created per host
232     pair).
233 pcg 1.1 .Sh "Retrying"
234     .IX Subsection "Retrying"
235     When there is no response to an auth request, the host will send auth
236     requests in bursts with an exponential backoff. After some time it will
237 pcg 1.2 resort to \s-1PING\s0 packets, which are very small (8 bytes) and lightweight
238     (no \s-1RSA\s0 operations required). A host that receives ping requests from an
239     unconnected peer will respond by trying to create a connection.
240 pcg 1.1 .PP
241     In addition to the exponential backoff, there is a global rate-limit on
242 pcg 1.2 a per-IP base. It allows long bursts but will limit total packet rate to
243 pcg 1.1 something like one control packet every ten seconds, to avoid accidental
244 pcg 1.2 floods due to protocol problems (like a \s-1RSA\s0 key file mismatch between two
245 pcg 1.1 hosts).
246     .Sh "Routing and Protocol translation"
247     .IX Subsection "Routing and Protocol translation"
248     The gvpe routing algorithm is easy: there isn't any routing. \s-1GVPE\s0 always
249     tries to establish direct connections, if the protocol abilities of the
250     two hosts allow it.
251     .PP
252     If the two hosts should be able to reach each other (common protocol, ip
253     and port all known), but cannot (network down), then there will be no
254     connection, point.
255     .PP
256     A host can usually declare itself unreachable directly by setting it's
257     port number(s) to zero. It can declare other hosts as unreachable by using
258     a config-file that disables all protocols for these other hosts.
259     .PP
260     If two hosts cannot connect to each other because their \s-1IP\s0 address(es)
261     are not known (such as dialup hosts), one side will send a connection
262     request to a router (routers must be configured to act as routers!), which
263     will send both the originating and the destination host a connection info
264     request with protocol information and \s-1IP\s0 address of the other host (if
265     known). Both hosts will then try to establish a connection to the other
266     peer, which is usually possible even when both hosts are behind a \s-1NAT\s0
267     gateway.
268     .PP
269     If the hosts cannot reach each other because they have no common protocol,
270     the originator instead use the router with highest priority and matching
271     protocol as peer. Since the \s-1SRCDST\s0 field is not encrypted, the router host
272     can just forward the packet to the destination host. Since each host uses
273     it's own private key, the router will not be able to decrypt or encrypt
274     packets, it will just act as a simple router and protocol translator.
275     .PP
276     When no router is connected, the host will aggressively try to connect to
277     all routers, and if a router is asked for an unconnected host it will try
278     to ask another router to establish the connection.
279     .PP
280     \&... more not yet written about the details of the routing, please bug me
281     \&...