I needed to setup a site-to-site VPN between servers A and B, where server A is being managed by me and server B is being managed by a client.
Server A is running Ubuntu 20.04 and I am using strongswan to setup the VPN on my end. I am using UFW to manage server A's firewall.
Public IP address of A: 16.XX.XXX.17
Public IP address of B: 14.XXX.XXX.94
Now after making the necessary configuration changes for setting up the VPN and turning it on, I am able to see the following logs in /var/log/syslog
Mar 21 13:58:47 worker0 charon: 01[ENC] parsed IKE_AUTH response 1 [ IDr AUTH N(ESP_TFC_PAD_N) SA TSi TSr ]
Mar 21 13:58:47 worker0 charon: 01[IKE] authentication of '14.XXX.XXX.94' with pre-shared key successful
Mar 21 13:58:47 worker0 charon: 01[IKE] IKE_SA s-to-s[1] established between 16.XX.XXX.17[16.XX.XXX.17]...14.XXX.XXX.94[14.XXX.XXX.94]
Mar 21 13:58:47 worker0 charon: 01[IKE] scheduling reauthentication in 2644s
Mar 21 13:58:47 worker0 charon: 01[IKE] maximum IKE_SA lifetime 3184s
Mar 21 13:58:47 worker0 charon: 01[IKE] received ESP_TFC_PADDING_NOT_SUPPORTED, not using ESPv3 TFC padding
Mar 21 13:58:47 worker0 charon: 01[CFG] selected proposal: ESP:AES_CBC_256/HMAC_SHA2_256_128/NO_EXT_SEQ
Mar 21 13:58:47 worker0 charon: 01[IKE] CHILD_SA s-to-s{1} established with SPIs c97fea32_i f60175ca_o and TS 10.132.86.142/32 === 10.128.28.96/27
Mar 21 13:58:53 worker0 charon: 14[NET] received packet: from 14.XXX.XXX.94[4500] to 16.XX.XXX.17[4500] (80 bytes)
Mar 21 13:58:53 worker0 charon: 14[ENC] parsed INFORMATIONAL request 0 [ ]
Mar 21 13:58:53 worker0 charon: 14[ENC] generating INFORMATIONAL response 0 [ ]
Mar 21 13:58:53 worker0 charon: 14[NET] sending packet: from 16.XX.XXX.17[4500] to 14.XXX.XXX.94[4500] (80 bytes)
Mar 21 13:58:58 worker0 charon: 07[NET] received packet: from 14.XXX.XXX.94[4500] to 16.XX.XXX.17[4500] (80 bytes)
Mar 21 13:58:58 worker0 charon: 07[ENC] parsed INFORMATIONAL request 1 [ ]
Mar 21 13:58:58 worker0 charon: 07[ENC] generating INFORMATIONAL response 1 [ ]
Mar 21 13:58:58 worker0 charon: 07[NET] sending packet: from 16.XX.XXX.17[4500] to 14.XXX.XXX.94[4500] (80 bytes)
Mar 21 13:59:03 worker0 charon: 05[NET] received packet: from 14.XXX.XXX.94[4500] to 16.XX.XXX.17[4500] (80 bytes)
Output of ipsec status:
Security Associations (1 up, 0 connecting):
s-to-s[1]: ESTABLISHED 5 minutes ago, 16.XX.XXX.17[16.XX.XXX.17]...14.XXX.XXX.94[14.XXX.XXX.94]
s-to-s{1}: INSTALLED, TUNNEL, reqid 1, ESP SPIs: c97fea32_i f60175ca_o
s-to-s{1}: 10.132.86.142/32 === 10.128.28.96/27
The ufw status
Status: active
To Action From
-- ------ ----
666 LIMIT Anywhere # For ssh
62626 ALLOW Anywhere # For wireguard
Anywhere on pv0 ALLOW Anywhere
666 (v6) LIMIT Anywhere (v6) # For ssh
62626 (v6) ALLOW Anywhere (v6) # For wireguard
Anywhere (v6) on pv0 ALLOW Anywhere (v6)
How is the server able to receive packets on 4500 port (according to the ipsec logs in /var/log/syslog) without me opening that port? What am I missing here?
I have not touched IP tables directly at all.
I have verified by running a simple http server on 8000 port (using python3 -m http.server) that I am not able to access other unopened ports from outside the server)
