1

I have been busting my brain for a few days not and I have so far not been able to figure out what the issue here is.

The Problem:

I am unable to establish a Client-to-ASA IPSec tunnel from behind another ASA.

The situation:

The network situation is like this:

              +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
              |                              VIA S2S VPN                            |
              |                                                                     |
+-------------v-----+                                                               |
|                   |                                                               |
|                   |                                                               |
|     VLAN 3        |                                                               |
|     "office"      |                                                               |
|     10.20.50.0/24 +---------------+                                               |
|                   |               |                                               | 
+-------------------+           +---v----------------+                              |
                                |                    |               +---------------------------+
                                |                    |               |    Internet  |            |
                                |     ASA 5505       +--------------->              |            |
+-------------------+           |                    |               |              |            |
|                   |           |                    <------------------------+     |            |
|    VLAN 5         +----------->                    |    S2S VPN    |        |     |            |
|    "visitor"      |           |                    |               +---------------------------+
|    192.168.0.0/24 |           |                    |                        |     |
|                   |           +--------------------+                        |     |
+-------------------+                                                 +-------v-----------+
                                                      +------------+  |             |     |
                                                      |            +-->    ASA 5512X|     |
                                                      |  VLAN 99   |  |             |     |
                                                      |  "management" |             |     |
                                                      |  10.20.99.0/24|             |     |
                                                      |            |  |             |     |
                                                      |            |  |             |     |
                                                      +------------+  +-------------------+
                                                                                    |
                                                                   +----------------v+
                                                                   |                 |
                                                                   |   VLAN 10       |
                                                                   |   "servers"     |
                                                                   |   10.20.30.0/24 |
                                                                   |                 |
                                                                   +-----------------+

I have the site to site VPN tunnel working and if you are in the "office" vlan you can access "servers" with no issues.

What I am not able to do is to establish a client to site IPsec tunnel either from Win, MacOS, or Linux while being in either "office" or "visitor". I know that the remote end, as well as my local configuration is OK because of:

  • It worked until the previous ASA died (was not able to salvage the config)
  • It works from home
  • It works when tethered via mobile phone

What happens:

(I can provide a more detailed debug log if it helps)

➜  ~ sudo vpnc-connect --dpd-idle 0 --debug 1 --local-port 10000 ~/config.conf

vpnc version 0.5.3r550-3
IKE SA selected psk+xauth-3des-sha1
NAT status: this end behind NAT? YES -- remote end behind NAT? no
got address 10.xx.xx.xx
received notice of type  (ISAKMP_N_INVALID_ID_INFORMATION)(18), giving up


---!!!!!!!!! entering phase2_fatal !!!!!!!!!---


vpnc-connect: quick mode response rejected:  (ISAKMP_N_INVALID_MESSAGE_ID)(9)
this means the concentrator did not like what we had to offer.
Possible reasons are:
  * concentrator configured to require a firewall
     this locks out even Cisco clients on any platform except windows
     which is an obvious security improvement. There is no workaround (yet).
  * concentrator configured to require IP compression
     this is not yet supported by vpnc.
     Note: the Cisco Concentrator Documentation recommends against using
     compression, except on low-bandwith (read: ISDN) links, because it
     uses much CPU-resources on the concentrator

What you do know? / What have you tried?:

  • It did not work in the most bare bones setup setup (Interface security, IP, default route, NAT)
  • As far as I can tell it is not an issue with firewall dropping packets
    • I can see packets going both ways with WireShark
    • Packet counters on specific "pass" firewall rules are increasing both directions
    • All "trace-packet" commands seemed to give an OK result
  • I added a "allow any any" rule as a test, no change in behavior
  • I added a deny rule for the UDP ports -> Different error (expected)
  • inspect ipsec-pass-thru on the default global policy does not seem to make any difference if it is present or not
  • Site-to-Site VPN tunnel is NOT interfering as most of the testing was done before ANY configuration related to that was added
  • I have read the config for some of our other sites and I cant find any statements that seem to explain it

I am presuming that the ASA is somehow modifying the packets in a way that breaks some checksum but I have so far been unable to convince it to no do that.

5
  • You said that you were able to do that before changing your firewall? Does it also means the configuration on other end 5512X remains unchanged?
    – Hung Tran
    Nov 6, 2017 at 21:33
  • Yes, the config on the 5512X remains unchanged, but I do have access to inspect it if needed.
    – KillerX
    Nov 7, 2017 at 7:26
  • Have you tried to enable crypto isakmp nat-traversal or create an one-one static NAT for an inside host?
    – Hung Tran
    Nov 7, 2017 at 9:23
  • Did any answer help you? If so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could provide and accept your own answer.
    – Ron Maupin
    Feb 21, 2018 at 17:39
  • @RonMaupin I have accepted the answer I posted myself.
    – KillerX
    Feb 23, 2018 at 14:06

1 Answer 1

1

Reddit user /u/Layer8Adjacent pointed out that the traffic may be getting double encryption due to the configured l2l tunnel on the remote end in the discussion at https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/7bc5pp/cisco_ipsec_passthrough_on_asa_5505_not_working/dph5nu4/

Using a different outgoing IP for NAT purposes solved the issue.

2
  • Glad to hear it works, and that is what I commented in your question.
    – Hung Tran
    Nov 8, 2017 at 13:57
  • @HungTran I probably misunderstood your comment then as I did not make that connection from your comments.
    – KillerX
    Nov 9, 2017 at 7:48

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.