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Revision: 1.4
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File Contents

# Content
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131 .IX Title "VPE.PROTOCOL 7"
132 .TH VPE.PROTOCOL 7 "2004-06-07" "1.7" "Virtual Private Ethernet"
133 .SH "The GNU-VPE Protocol"
134 .IX Header "The GNU-VPE Protocol"
135 .Sh "Anatomy of a \s-1VPN\s0 packet"
136 .IX Subsection "Anatomy of a VPN packet"
137 The exact layout and field lengths of a \s-1VPN\s0 packet is determined at
138 compiletime and doesn't change. The same structure is used for all
139 protocols, be it rawip or tcp.
140 .PP
141 .Vb 3
142 \& +------+------+--------+------+
143 \& | HMAC | TYPE | SRCDST | DATA |
144 \& +------+------+--------+------+
145 .Ve
146 .PP
147 The \s-1HMAC\s0 field is present in all packets, even if not used (e.g. in auth
148 request packets), in which case it is set to all zeroes. The checksum
149 itself is over the \s-1TYPE\s0, \s-1SRCDST\s0 and \s-1DATA\s0 fields in all cases.
150 .PP
151 The \s-1TYPE\s0 field is a single byte and determines the purpose of the packet
152 (e.g. \s-1RESET\s0, \s-1COMPRESSED/UNCOMPRESSED\s0 \s-1DATA\s0, \s-1PING\s0, \s-1AUTH\s0 \s-1REQUEST/RESPONSE\s0,
153 \&\s-1CONNECT\s0 \s-1REQUEST/INFO\s0 etc.).
154 .PP
155 \&\s-1SRCDST\s0 is a three byte field which contains the source and destination
156 node ids (12 bits each). The protocol does not yet scale well beyond 30+
157 hosts, since all hosts connect to each other on startup. But if restarts
158 are rare or tolerable and most connections are on demand, larger networks
159 are possible.
160 .PP
161 The \s-1DATA\s0 portion differs between each packet type, naturally, and is the
162 only part that can be encrypted. Data packets contain more fields, as
163 shown:
164 .PP
165 .Vb 3
166 \& +------+------+--------+------+-------+------+
167 \& | HMAC | TYPE | SRCDST | RAND | SEQNO | DATA |
168 \& +------+------+--------+------+-------+------+
169 .Ve
170 .PP
171 \&\s-1RAND\s0 is a sequence of fully random bytes, used to increase the entropy of
172 the data for encryption purposes.
173 .PP
174 \&\s-1SEQNO\s0 is a 32\-bit sequence number. It is negotiated at every connection
175 initialization and starts at some random 31 bit value. \s-1VPE\s0 currently uses
176 a sliding window of 512 packets to detect reordering, duplication and
177 reply attacks.
178 .Sh "The authentification protocol"
179 .IX Subsection "The authentification protocol"
180 Before hosts can exchange packets, they need to establish authenticity of
181 the other side and a key. Every host has a private \s-1RSA\s0 key and the public
182 \&\s-1RSA\s0 keys of all other hosts.
183 .PP
184 A host establishes a simplex connection by sending the other host a
185 \&\s-1RSA\s0 encrypted challenge containing a random challenge (consisting of
186 the encryption key to use when sending packets, more random data and
187 \&\s-1PKCS1_OAEP\s0 padding) and a random 16 byte \*(L"challenge\-id\*(R" (used to detect
188 duplicate auth packets). The destination host will respond by replying
189 with an (unencrypted) \s-1RIPEMD160\s0 hash of the decrypted challenge, which
190 will authentify that host. The destination host will also set the outgoing
191 encryption parameters as given in the packet.
192 .PP
193 When the source host receives a correct auth reply (by verifying the
194 hash and the id, which will expire after 120 seconds), it will start to
195 accept data packets from the destination host.
196 .PP
197 This means that a host can only initate a simplex connection, telling the
198 other side the key it has to use when it sends packets. The challenge
199 reply is only used to set the current \s-1IP\s0 address and protocol parameters.
200 .PP
201 The protocol here is completely symmetric, so to be able to send packets
202 the destination host must send a challenge in the exact same way as
203 already described (so, in essence, two simplex connections are created per
204 host pair).
205 .Sh "Retrying"
206 .IX Subsection "Retrying"
207 When there is no response to an auth request, the host will send auth
208 requests in bursts with an exponential backoff. After some time it will
209 resort to \s-1PING\s0 packets, which are very small (8 byte) and lightweight (no
210 \&\s-1RSA\s0 operations). A host that receives ping requests from an unconnected
211 peer will respond by trying to create a connection.
212 .PP
213 In addition to the exponential backoff, there is a global rate-limit on
214 a per-ip base. It allows long bursts but will limit total packet rate to
215 something like one control packet every ten seconds, to avoid accidental
216 floods due to protocol problems (like a rsa key file mismatch between two
217 hosts).
218 .Sh "Routing and Protocol translation"
219 .IX Subsection "Routing and Protocol translation"
220 The vpe routing algorithm is easy: there isn't any routing. Vped always
221 tries to establish direct connections, if the protocol abilities of the
222 two hosts allow it.
223 .PP
224 If the two hosts should be able to reach each other (common protocol, ip
225 and port all known), but cannot (network down), then there will be no
226 connection, point.
227 .PP
228 A host can usually declare itself unreachable directly by setting it's
229 port number(s) to zero. It can declare other hosts as unreachable by using
230 a config-file that disables all protocols for these other hosts.
231 .PP
232 If two hosts cannot connect to each other because their \s-1IP\s0 address(es)
233 are not known (such as dialup hosts), one side will send a connection
234 request to a router (routers must be configured to act as routers!), which
235 will send both the originating and the destination host a connection info
236 request with protocol information and \s-1IP\s0 address of the other host (if
237 known). Both hosts will then try to establish a connection to the other
238 peer, which is usually possible even when both hosts are behind a \s-1NAT\s0
239 gateway.
240 .PP
241 If the hosts cannot reach each other because they have no common protocol,
242 the originator instead use the router with highest priority and matching
243 protocol as peer. Since the \s-1SRCDST\s0 field is not encrypted, the router host
244 can just forward the packet to the destination host. Since each host uses
245 it's own private key, the router will not be able to decrypt or encrypt
246 packets, it will just act as a simple router and protocol translator.
247 .PP
248 When no router is connected, the host will aggressively try to connect to
249 all routers, and if a router is asked for an unconnected host it will try
250 to ask another router to establish the connection.
251 .PP
252 \&... more not yet written about the details of the routing, please bug me
253 \&...