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FreeS/WAN Project Bows Out
V. Mole writes "After five years, the FreeS/WAN project has decided to end development. The main reason seems to be that although the project was technically successful, it was not making much progress with its political goals of encrypting a significant portion of all Internet communications, although one might guess that the selection of KAME for the standard Linux IPSEC implementation might also have influenced this decision. And don't panic, the software will remain available, and of course some other group is free to continue development."
And don't panic, the software will remain available, and of course some other group is free to continue development
this is probably one of the reason why OSS is A Good Thing.
Dear FreeS/WAN Community,
After more than five years of active development, the FreeS/WAN project will be coming to an end.
The initial goal of the project was ambitious -- to secure the Internet using opportunisitically negotiated encryption, invisible and convenient to the user. For more, see our history page. A secondary goal was to challenge then-current US export regulations, which prohibited the export of strong cryptography (such as triple DES encryption) of US origin or authorship.
Since the project's inception, there has been limited success on the political front. After the watershed Bernstein case, US export regulations were relaxed. Since then, many US companies have exported strong cryptography, without seeming restriction other than having to notify the Bureau of Export Administration for tracking purposes.
This comfortable situation has perhaps created a false sense of security. The catch? Export regulations are not laws. The US government still reserves the right to change its export regulations on short notice, and there is no facility to challenge them directly in a court of law. This leaves the US crypto community and US Linux distributions in a position which seems safe, but is not legally protected -- where the US government might at any time *retroactively* regulate previously released code, by prohibiting its future export. This is why FreeS/WAN has always been developed outside the US (in Canada and in Greece), and why it has never (to the best of our knowledge) accepted US patches.
If FreeS/WAN has neither secured the Internet, nor secured the right of US citizens to export software that could do so, it has still had positive benefit.
With version 1.x, the FreeS/WAN team created a mature, well-tested IPsec VPN (Virtual Private Network) product for Linux. The Linux community has relied on it for some time, and it (or a patched variant) has shipped with several Linux distributions.
With version 2.x, FreeS/WAN development efforts focussed on increasing the usability of Opportunistic Encryption (OE), IPSec encryption without prearrangement. Configuration was simplified, FreeS/WAN's cryptographic offerings were streamlined, and the team promoted OE through talks and outreach.
However, nine months after the release of FreeS/WAN 2.00, OE has not caught on as we'd hoped. The Linux user community demands feature-rich VPNs for corporate clients, and while folks genuinely enjoy FreeS/WAN and its derivatives, the ways they use FreeS/WAN don't seem to be getting us any closer to the project's goal: widespread deployment of OE. For its part, OE requires more testing and community feedback before it is ready to be used without second thought. The project's funders have therefore chosen to withdraw their funding.
Anywhere you stop, a little of the road ahead is visible. FreeS/WAN 2.x might have developed further, for example to include ipv6 support.
Before the project stops, the team plans to do at least one more release. Release 2.06 will see FreeS/WAN making a late step toward its goal of being a simple, secure OE product with the removal of Transport Mode. This in keeping with one of Neils Fergusson's and Bruce Schneier's security recommendations, in A Cryptographic Evaluation of IPsec. 2.06 will also feature KLIPS (FreeS/WAN's Kernel Layer IPsec machinery) changes to faciliate use with the 2.6 kernel series.
After Release 2.06, FreeS/WAN code will continue to be available for public use and tinkering. Our website will stay up, and our mailing lists at lists.freeswan.org will continue to provide a forum for users to support one another. We expect that FreeS/WAN and its derivatives will be widely deployed for some time to come.
It is our hope that the public will one day be ready for, and demand, transparent, opportunistic encryption. Perhaps then some adventurous folks pick up FreeS/WAN 2.x and continue its development, making the project's original goal a reality.
Important info:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
http://dieoff.org/synopsis.htm
http://www.peakoil.net
Openswan is an Open Source implementation of IPsec for the Linux operating system. Is it a code fork of the FreeS/WAN project, started by a few of the developers who were growing frustrated with the politics surrounding the FreeS/WAN project.
This is rather bad news for the not insignificant FreeS/WAN install base out there. The company I worked for last year, for instance, poured a significant quantity of time and money into a corporate VPN based on FreeS/WAN, and even bundled it into products. They don't have the resources or experience to support FreeS/WAN in house themselves, so they'll be in for an intersting ride if problems are discovered. AFAIK, they were hoping not to have to upgrade to Linux 2.6 for at least a year, but that may have to change now. Who all out there is getting left in the lurch by this?
As I understand it, they wanted to use opptunistic encryption to do the "common man" encryption of the 5% of the internet. Has this actually become standard yet? If so, it's only been within the last couple of years I think (since I've stopped dealing with VPN).
Also, aren't there other problems inherant with OE? IE: the need to have secure DNS before this can really happen, or a PKI infrastructure or public key escrow or something? I'd love to just install freeswan on my firewall and have encrypted connections happen, but a) would it really help things and b) would it be like being the first one on the block to have a videophone?
It's not triple-DES, but it's double-rot-13. Sounds safe enough.
The Army reading list
I've taken my Super FreeS/WAN tree, and formed a company with some other ex-FreeS/WAN folks.
Openswan is new name of the project, you can already get code from www.openswan.org.
Commercial support + services from us via Xelerance
Ken
How many commercial products are there that were started over five years ago that are still in current development? There are quite a handful still in current development--but vastly more that have been abandoned completely.
Both in the open source world and in the commercial world, the vast majority of projects die. The difference is that in the open source world, the dead projects can still be put to good use in a new reincarnation down the line.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
Support from a guy with a two-digit Slashdot User ID... what more could you ask for?
In classic Linux fashion, I found FreeSwan complicated and hard to use. It had incredibly obtuse error messages. I couldn't figure out how to configure it (configuring it may be simple, but I couldn't actually figure out _what_ needed to be configured). All I wanted to do was talk to our corporate Sonicwall. All in all a very unpleasant experience.
I fought with it for a week - did tons of google research, and still couldn't get Phase2 to work. I eventually caved in and bought a Linksys VPN endpoint router that comes with a simple web administration tool. I had it up and running in 15 minutes. I'm just sorry I wasted that week on FreeSwan.
Thanks! Some of us have been doing this stuff for many, many years. We might even be good at it by now
What's wrong with implementing OpenVPN- the SSL approach? I suppose it may be difficult for some companies to upgrade . . . but if they require it, and it is a viable alternative- why not?
Would it really be that difficult for somebody to take over the development? Maybe their role could be more to administer the operation rather than code a lot of it.
Also, this (google's cache) or the PDF version of the above claims that FreeS/WAN does not support PKI.
to be learned here. The stated goal of the project was to increase the amount of traffic that is encrypted on the internet. While this does not directly conflict with the goal of making as much software as possible "free" (as in beer), it does set a different goal.
Why the hell am I bringing this up? Well, one of the problems with FreeS/WAN was that it would not work with low-bit encryption. This was done to promote their political goal. But it also had the side effect of inhibiting adoption at the places where for whatever reason people had to interoperate with low-bit encryption applications or setups. The last time I checked (which I have to admit was over 2 years ago) the FreeS/WAN project explicitly stated that they would refuse to cooperate with anyone who tried "subvert" the project by building-in interoperation with low-bit encryption.
So what is this lesson to be learned that I am talking about? When fighting an uphill battle (which a volunteer project challenging for-profit institutions always does), it may not be wise to make it more difficult for people on the sidelines to agree with your cause.
Linux was built on much better technology than Windows (nfs vs smb, ext vs fat, separate windowing subsystem vs windowing system as part of the kernel, etc), but it didn't gain in popularity because it decided it replace all the Windows boxen. The technical decision was made to cooperate with them. The fundamental decision on priorities was to hold interoperability above politics. FreeS/Wan took the other road.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
rot-13 was an simple cypher used to 'encrypt' spoilers and possibly offensive material in Usenet posts. It worked by converting each letter of the (latin) alphabet to it's numerical equivalent (a=1, b=2, ... ,z=26), adding 13, subtracting 26 if the result was larger than 26, then converting back to a letter. (ROTating the letter thirteen 'spaces').
"Hello World" -> "Uryyb Jbeyq"
triple-DES is a more modern encryption scheme still in use today.
The humor comes from the fact that applying rot-13 twice results in the exact original text, so saying that the Internet uses 'double rot-13 by default' is just noting that it's completely unencrypted but in a way that makes it sound like a real encryption scheme.
It really was quite an amusing post... unlike this one.
The 2.6 implementation is not as mature, but it has excellent success factors. It was written by an alpha kernel hacker, it's in the mainline, and it's open in the Linux tradition. An influx of former FreeS/WAN users may be just what it needs to work out the kinks. FreeS/WAN has done a great service, and is now doing another by throwing its momentum behind an implementation with better long-term prospects.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
I've been a Linux user for 10 years, and a Unix System Administrator for 3 years, but Freeswan was among the most challenging things I've ever installed. I found that nothing less than reading the documentation from cover to cover is sufficient to understand it. I'm not suprised that it never caught with any sort of mainstream. Don't get me wrong, I am all for the vision of a secure-by-default internet. But unfortunately, it's so tough to install that only die hard security buffs have the patience to figure it out. Where is the ncurses-based "kernel setup wizard" script with forward and backward buttons? A checklist-based helper to point out what is missing next in getting the damn thing installed properly? A webmin module? A gui based connection configurator, called, say, [g|k]freeswan-conf? ESR has it dead on: without a thick slathering of user friendliness, this sort of project cannot succeed on any widespread level. Them's the breaks. I wish things were diffrent, believe me.
Actually, I've implemented FreeS/WAN on some VPNs that operate over wireless ISPs in Mexico, and is seems unusually tolerant of the, shall we say, continuous stream of new and exciting conditions that exist on those networks. It's been far more stable than some commercial products we tried (for big $$$).
That being said, I did believe (from reading the docs) that the development team was far more interested in making a (pointless, IMHO) political statement than in creating a useable piece of software. For most small / medium businesses, Oportunistic Encryption is the last thing you want - typically these companies have one interface to the Internet, and having trusted and untrusted-from-random-IP-subnets coming in on the same connection creates a firewall design nightmare. I'm sure there's a way to make it work, but frankly if information is worth securing, we can and do secure it. If it isn't, then we just don't care - I'd rather just Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
... not making much progress with its political goals of encrypting a significant portion of all Internet communications ...
Part of the problem with the FreeS/WAN group was that they DIDN'T WANT TO INTEROPERATE. Their attitude toward single DES was that they refused to support it because it wasn't sufficiently secure. As I recall, they wouldn't even accept patches that provided it as an ifdef with the default turned off. So, they were a pain in the ass to use for any serious interoperative commercial development, which obviously requires stooping to single DES.
This quote from the FAQ at freeswan.org sums up their attitude regarding interoperability:
"As we see it, it is more important to deliver real security than to comply with a standard which has been subverted into allowing use of inadequate methods."
FreeS/WAN saw it wrong. Sure, single DES is not macho enough, but interoperating is pretty damned important, even if that means supporting a protocol that is beneath your 'leetness.
Typically, an SSL "VPN" is really just a web app that uses ssl between your browser and itself. It runs on a box on the private network, and provides file browsing capabilities, "intranet" access (e.g. an internal purchasing website), etc. But it doesn't let you encrypt your ping packets, since you're not even really connected to the secured network.
I think the companies who created the thing called it a "VPN" because it was the buzzword, and not because it is at all a Virtual Private Network.
Long time ago there was an awsome program called ecco pro. This program was always highly rated by magazines and users and had a devoted following. Netmanage bought this program from the original company (arabasque) and shortly thereafter shelved it for mysterious reasons (many people suspected MS foul play).
That was a very long time ago and today there is still a vibrant community of ecco users who swear up and down that no other product even comes close. They beg Netmanage to sell the code to them or to open up the source code but Netmanage just ignores their requests. Oddly enough Netmanage does let people download the binary.
To me what netmanage is doing is just cruel. They are not making money off of it, they don't support it and yet they refuse to sell it or open it up. Why did they buy this program for so much money just to mothball it?
Companies are like that. They sometimes suck.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
For those of you who say "freeswan was so hard to configure so kame's better freeswan sucks bla bla" or even "kame sucks freeswan is king because kame tools are hard to understand" I have this to say: IPSEC in general is hard to configure... you've got tons of different parameters, hash algs, enc algs, id's, tunnels, ah, esp bla bla bla and if you don't understand the protocol in general then you have no business saying either is hard to configure because you got lucky with one of them and it just worked and now you're married to it and consider it superior. I have used both kame and freeswan and can say with authority, hacking for weeks at a time on custom patchs for freeswan, that they are both good products. I LIKE freeswan more because of it's overall feel of higher quality for managing large numbers of connections and it's general tollerance of other devices that have slightly broken behaiour. For instance, you can turn off rekeying on a connection and let the other side always initiate keying. That is handy. Now I don't agree with their politics and I really could do without them -- I can't say that I much care. Freeswan, in the spirit of open source allowed others to modify it as they see fit. I DID, others did, it worked. Saying the project was worthless without really looking at what it's existance has done and only looking at the fact that some of the politics were bad is most disturbing. I would hate to hear even one of you say BSD sucks because of some configuration issue you had on 386 bsd back in the day.
/var/log/auth.log is your friend, as is ipsec auto --status | grep connectionname | grep esp (shows active tunnels)... OH one other thing... if you cant figure out what the other side is configured to when it does phase 1 and phase 2 negotiation, ipsec whack --name connectionname --debug-parsing ; tail -f /var/log/auth.log to tell you EVERY SINGLE ipsec parameter the other side sends you.
.. for a plain old ipsec implementation, it's pretty much done so who can blame em!?
And just for the record, tail -f
For those who hated freeswan because error messages sucked, try the above. For those who say it sucked because of politics, welcome to open source!
To me it seems obvious that freeswan will still deployed and maintained -- it's just too good of a thing to let go. Try to think of this as a releasing -- openswan and the rest are not going anywhere. Freeswan's active development is done... since their main goal was OE. Since I didn't want OE, I don't care. It's not like freeswan doesn't support some IPSEC feature or that its behind the times. What else needs to be done? Maintenance I would gather
Considering the responses i've seen here, it's going to be maintained. I'm glad we're in opensource land and I don't HAVE to use kame if I don't want to or have some reason where freeswan is slightly better for my situation.