IKE Daemon

The in.iked daemon automates the management of cryptographic keys for IPsec on a Solaris system. The daemon negotiates with a remote system that is running the same protocol to provide authenticated keying materials for security associations (SAs) in a protected manner. The daemon must be running on all systems that plan to communicate securely.

By default, the svc:/network/ipsec/ike:default service is not enabled. After you have configured the /etc/inet/ike/config file and enabled the ike service, the in.iked daemon runs at system boot.

When the IKE daemon runs, the system authenticates itself to its peer IKE entity in the Phase 1 exchange. The peer is defined in the IKE policy file, as are the authentication methods. The daemon then establishes the keys for the Phase 2 exchange. At an interval specified in the policy file, the IKE keys are refreshed automatically. The in.iked daemon listens for incoming IKE requests from the network and for requests for outbound traffic through the PF_KEY socket. For more information, see the pf_key(7P) man page.

Two commands support the IKE daemon. The ikeadm command can be used to view and temporarily modify the IKE policy. To permanently modify IKE policy, you modify properties of the ike service. For the procedure, see How to View IKE Preshared Keys.

The ikecert command enables you to view and manage the public key databases. This command manages the local databases, ike.privatekeys and publickeys. This command also manages public key operations and the storage of public keys on hardware.