How To Install libstrongswan on Ubuntu
Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )
3 minutes • 581 words
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install libstrongswan on Ubuntu.
What is libstrongswan
libstrongswan is:
The strongSwan VPN suite uses the native IPsec stack in the standard Linux kernel. It supports both the IKEv1 and IKEv2 protocols.
This package provides the underlying libraries of charon and other strongSwan components. It is built in a modular way and is extendable through various plugins.
Some default (as specified by the strongSwan projet) plugins are included. For libstrongswan (cryptographic backends, URI fetchers and database layers):
- aes (AES-128/192/256 cipher software implementation)
- constraints (X.509 certificate advanced constraint checking)
- dnskey (Parse RFC 4034 public keys)
- drbg (NIST SP-800-90A Deterministic Random Bit Generator)
- fips-prf (PRF specified by FIPS, used by EAP-SIM/AKA algorithms)
- gmp (RSA/DH crypto backend based on libgmp)
- hmac (HMAC wrapper using various hashers)
- md5 (MD5 hasher software implementation)
- mgf1 (Mask Generation Functions based on the SHA-1, SHA-256 and SHA-512)
- nonce (Default nonce generation plugin)
- pem (PEM encoding/decoding routines)
- pgp (PGP encoding/decoding routines)
- pkcs1 (PKCS#1 encoding/decoding routines)
- pkcs8 (PKCS#8 decoding routines)
- pkcs12 (PKCS#12 decoding routines)
- pubkey (Wrapper to handle raw public keys as trusted certificates)
- random (RNG reading from /dev/[u]random)
- rc2 (RC2 cipher software implementation)
- revocation (X.509 CRL/OCSP revocation checking)
- sha1 (SHA1 hasher software implementation)
- sha2 (SHA256/SHA384/SHA512 hasher software implementation)
- sshkey (SSH key decoding routines)
- x509 (Advanced X.509 plugin for parsing/generating X.509 certificates/CRLs and OCSP messages)
- xcbc (XCBC wrapper using various ciphers)
- attr (Provides IKE attributes configured in strongswan.conf)
- kernel-netlink [linux] (IPsec/Networking kernel interface using Linux Netlink)
- kernel-pfkey [kfreebsd] (IPsec kernel interface using PF_KEY)
- kernel-pfroute [kfreebsd] (Networking kernel interface using PF_ROUTE)
- resolve (Writes name servers received via IKE to a resolv.conf file or installs them via resolvconf(8))
There are three methods to install libstrongswan on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install libstrongswan Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install libstrongswan using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install libstrongswan
Install libstrongswan Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install libstrongswan using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install libstrongswan
Install libstrongswan Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install libstrongswan using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install libstrongswan
How To Uninstall libstrongswan on Ubuntu
To uninstall only the libstrongswan package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove libstrongswan
Uninstall libstrongswan And Its Dependencies
To uninstall libstrongswan and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove libstrongswan
Remove libstrongswan Configurations and Data
To remove libstrongswan configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge libstrongswan
Remove libstrongswan configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove libstrongswan configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge libstrongswan
Dependencies
libstrongswan have the following dependencies:
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install libstrongswan package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.