Key Management in IPsec

Security associations (SAs) require keying material for authentication and for encryption. The managing of this keying material is called key management. The Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol handles key management automatically. You can also manage keys manually with the ipseckey command.

SAs on IPv4 and IPv6 packets can use either method of key management. Unless you have an overriding reason to use manual key management, automatic key management is preferred. For example, to interoperate with systems other than Solaris systems might require manual key management.

In the current release, SMF provides the following key management services for IPsec:

• svc:/network/ipsec/ike:default service – Is the SMF service for automatic key management. The ike service runs the in.iked daemon to provide automatic key management. For a description of IKE, see Chapter 22, Internet Key Exchange (Overview). For more information about the in.iked daemon, see the in.iked(1M) man page. For information about the ike service, see the IKE Service Management Facility.

• svc:/network/ipsec/manual-key:default service – Is the SMF service for manual key management. The manual-key service runs the ipseckey command with various options to manage keys manually. For a description of the ipseckey command, see Utilities for Key Generation in IPsec. For a detailed description of the ipseckey command options, see the ipseckey(1M) man page.

In the releases prior to the Solaris 10 4/09 release, the in.iked and ipseckey commands manage keying material.

• The in.iked daemon provides automatic key management. For a description of IKE, see Chapter 22, Internet Key Exchange (Overview). For more information on the in.iked daemon, see the in.iked(1M) man page.

• The ipseckey command provides manual key management. For a description of the command, see Utilities for Key Generation in IPsec. For a detailed description of the ipseckey command options, see the ipseckey(1M) man page.