Home Features Download Documentation How-to Getting help VPN clients

OpenConnect VPN server

Using Kerberos authentication with ocserv

Author: Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos

Introduction

One of the main features of the 0.10.x branch of OpenConnect VPN is the addition of MS-KKDCP support and GSSAPI authentication. Putting the acronyms aside that means that authentication with Kerberos, is greatly simplified for VPN users. A more elaborate introduction is available at this blog post.

Setting the server up

It is required to instruct ocserv to allow GSSAPI for authentication. That can be done with the following two lines in ocserv.conf.

auth = pam
enable-auth = gssapi[keytab=/etc/ocserv/key.tab,tgt-freshness-time=360]

That will allow authentication with Kerberos tickets, as well as with their password (e.g., for clients that cannot obtain a ticket – like clients in mobile phones). In addition the ‘keytab’ option sets the ocserv’s shared key with KDC explicitly. The option ‘tgt-freshness-time’, when used, specifies the valid for VPN authentication lifetime, in seconds, of a Kerberos (TGT) ticket. A user will have to reauthenticate if this time is exceeded. In effect that prevents the usage of the VPN for the whole lifetime of a Kerberos ticket.

The following line will enable the MS-KKDCP proxy on ocserv. You’ll need to replace the KERBEROS.REALM with your realm and the KDC IP address. That proxy will allow the client to obtain Kerberos tickets through ocserv. The latter is an optional step if your clients can obtain the tickets with other means.

kkdcp = /KdcProxy KERBEROS.REALM tcp@KDC-IP-ADDRESS:88

Note, that for PAM authentication to operate you will also need to set up a /etc/pam.d/ocserv. We recommend to use pam_krb5 or pam_sssd for that, although it can contain anything that best suits the local policy. An example for an SSSD PAM configuration is shown in the Fedora Deployment guide.

Setting the client up

At the client side you must make sure you use openconnect 7.05 or later. In order to use the KKDCP proxy as setup above, you need to setup Kerberos to use ocserv as KDC. For that you’ll need to modify /etc/krb5.conf to contain the following:

[realms]
KERBEROS.REALM = {
    kdc = https://ocserv.example.com/KdcProxy
    http_anchors = FILE:/path-to-your/ca.pem
    admin_server = ocserv.example.com
    auto_to_local = DEFAULT
}

[domain_realm]
.kerberos.test = KERBEROS.REALM
kerberos.test = KERBEROS.REALM

Note that, ocserv.example.com should be replaced with the DNS name of your server, and the /path-to-your/ca.pem should be replaced by the a PEM-formatted file which holds the server’s Certificate Authority. For the KDC option the server’s DNS name is preferred to an IP address to simplify server name verification for the Kerberos libraries. At this point you should be able to use kinit to authenticate and obtain a ticket from the Kerberos Authentication Server.

Note however, that kinit is very brief on the printed errors and a server certificate verification error will not be easy to debug. Ensure that the http_anchors file is in PEM format, it contains the Certificate Authority that signed the server’s certificate, and that the server’s certificate DNS name matches the DNS name setup in the file.

Then, at a terminal run:

$ kinit

If the command succeeds, the ticket is obtained, and at this point you will be able to setup openconnect from network manager GUI and connect to it using the Kerberos credentials. To setup a VPN via NetworkManager on the system menu, select VPN, Network Settings, and add a new Network of “CISCO AnyConnect Compatible VPN (openconnect)”. On the Gateway field, fill in the server’s DNS name, add the server’s CA certificate, and that’s all required.

To use the command line client with Kerberos the following trick is recommended. That avoids using sudo with the client and runs the openconnect client as a normal user, after having created a tun device. The reason it avoids using the openconnect client with sudo, is that sudo will prevent access to the user’s Kerberos credentials.

# sudo ip tuntap add vpn0 mode tun user my-user-name
$ openconnect server.example.com -i vpn0