1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC
"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
2 "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
6 <TITLE>L2TPNS Manual
</TITLE>
7 <STYLE TYPE=
"text/css">
13 border-top:
1px solid black;
14 border-bottom:
1px solid black;
15 background-color: lightblue;
20 text-decoration: underline;
25 <H1>L2TPNS Manual
</H1>
27 <LI><A HREF=
"#Overview">Overview
</A></LI>
28 <LI><A HREF=
"#Installation">Installation
</A>
30 <LI><A HREF=
"#Requirements">Requirements
</A></LI>
31 <LI><A HREF=
"#Compile">Compile
</A></LI>
32 <LI><A HREF=
"#Install">Install
</A></LI>
33 <LI><A HREF=
"#Running">Running
</A></LI>
36 <LI><A HREF=
"#Configuration">Configuration
</A>
38 <LI><A HREF=
"#startup-config">startup-config
</A></LI>
39 <LI><A HREF=
"#users">users
</A></LI>
40 <LI><A HREF=
"#ip-pool">ip_pool
</A></LI>
41 <LI><A HREF=
"#build-garden">build-garden
</A></LI>
44 <LI><A HREF=
"#ControllingtheProcess">Controlling the Process
</A>
46 <LI><A HREF=
"#Command-LineInterface">Command-Line Interface
</A></LI>
47 <LI><A HREF=
"#nsctl">nsctl
</A></LI>
48 <LI><A HREF=
"#Signals">Signals
</A></LI>
51 <LI><A HREF=
"#Throttling">Throttling
</A></LI>
52 <LI><A HREF=
"#Interception">Interception
</A></LI>
53 <LI><A HREF=
"#Authentication">Authentication
</A></LI>
54 <LI><A HREF=
"#Plugins">Plugins
</A></LI>
55 <LI><A HREF=
"#WalledGarden">Walled Garden
</A></LI>
56 <LI><A HREF=
"#Filtering">Filtering
</A></LI>
57 <LI><A HREF=
"#Clustering">Clustering
</A></LI>
58 <LI><A HREF=
"#Routing">Routing
</A></LI>
59 <LI><A HREF=
"#AvoidingFragmentation">Avoiding Fragmentation
</A></LI>
60 <LI><A HREF=
"#Performance">Performance
</A></LI>
63 <H2 ID=
"Overview">Overview
</H2>
64 l2tpns is half of a complete L2TP implementation. It supports only the
65 LNS side of the connection.
<P>
67 L2TP (Layer
2 Tunneling Protocol) is designed to allow any layer
2
68 protocol (e.g. Ethernet, PPP) to be tunneled over an IP connection. l2tpns
69 implements PPP over L2TP only.
<P>
71 There are a couple of other L2TP implementations, of which
<A
72 HREF=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/l2tpd">l2tpd
</A> is probably the
73 most popular. l2tpd also will handle being either end of a tunnel, and
74 is a lot more configurable than l2tpns. However, due to the way it works,
75 it is nowhere near as scalable.
<P>
77 l2tpns uses the TUN/TAP interface provided by the Linux kernel to receive
78 and send packets. Using some packet manipulation it doesn't require a
79 single interface per connection, as l2tpd does.
<P>
81 This allows it to scale extremely well to very high loads and very high
82 numbers of connections.
<P>
84 It also has a plugin architecture which allows custom code to be run
85 during processing. An example of this is in the walled garden module
89 <EM>Documentation is not my best skill. If you find any problems
90 with this document, or if you wish to contribute, please email
<A
91 HREF=
"mailto:l2tpns-users@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=L2TPNS+Documentation">the mailing list
</A>.
</EM><P>
93 <H2 ID=
"Installation">Installation
</H2>
94 <H3 ID=
"Requirements">Requirements
</H3>
97 <LI>Linux kernel version
2.4 or above, with the Tun/Tap interface either
98 compiled in, or as a module.
</LI>
100 <LI>libcli
1.8.0 or greater.
<BR>You can get this from
<A
101 HREF=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/libcli">http://sourceforge.net/projects/libcli
</A></LI>
104 <H3 ID=
"Compile">Compile
</H3>
106 You can generally get away with just running
<B>make
</B> from the source
107 directory. This will compile the daemon, associated tools and any modules
108 shipped with the distribution.
<P>
110 <H3 ID=
"Install">Install
</H3>
112 After you have successfully compiled everything, run
<B>make
113 install
</B> to install it. By default, the binaries are installed into
114 <EM>/usr/sbin
</EM>, the configuration into
<EM>/etc/l2tpns
</EM>, and the
115 modules into
<EM>/usr/lib/l2tpns
</EM>.
<P>
117 You will definately need to edit the configuration files before you
118 start. See the
<A HREF=
"#Configuration">Configuration
</A> section for
121 <H3 ID=
"Running">Running
</H3>
123 You only need to run
<B>/usr/sbin/l2tpns
</B> as root to start it. It does
124 not detach to a daemon process, so you should perhaps run it from init.
<P>
126 By default there is no log destination set, so all log messages will go to
129 <H2 ID=
"Configuration">Configuration
</H2>
131 All configuration of the software is done from the files installed into
134 <H3 ID=
"startup-config">startup-config
</H3>
136 This is the main configuration file for l2tpns. The format of the file is a
137 list of commands that can be run through the command-line interface. This
138 file can also be written directly by the l2tpns process if a user runs the
139 <EM>write memory
</EM> command, so any comments will be lost. However if your
140 policy is not to write the config by the program, then feel free to comment
141 the file with a # or ! at the beginning of the line.
<P>
143 A list of the possible configuration directives follows. Each of these
144 should be set by a line like:
<P>
146 set configstring
"value"
147 set ipaddress
192.168.1.1
153 <LI><B>debug
</B> (int)
<BR>
154 Sets the level of messages that will be written to the log file. The value
155 should be between
0 and
5, with
0 being no debugging, and
5 being the
156 highest. A rough description of the levels is:
158 <LI VALUE=
0>Critical Errors - Things are probably broken
</LI>
159 <LI>Errors - Things might have gone wrong, but probably will recover
</LI>
160 <LI>Warnings - Just in case you care what is not quite perfect
</LI>
161 <LI>Information - Parameters of control packets
</LI>
162 <LI>Calls - For tracing the execution of the code
</LI>
163 <LI>Packets - Everything, including a hex dump of all packets processed... probably twice
</LI>
165 Note that the higher you set the debugging level, the slower the program
166 will run. Also, at level
5 a LOT of information will be logged. This should
167 only ever be used for working out why it doesn't work at all.
170 <LI><B>log_file
</B> (string)
<BR>
171 This will be where all logging and debugging information is written
172 to. This may be either a filename, such as
<EM>/var/log/l2tpns
</EM>, or
173 the special magic string
<EM>syslog:facility
</EM>, where
<EM>facility
</EM>
174 is any one of the syslog logging facilities, such as local5.
177 <LI><B>pid_file
</B> (string)
<BR>
178 If set, the process id will be written to the specified file. The
179 value must be an absolute path.
182 <LI><B>l2tp_secret
</B> (string)
<BR>
183 The secret used by l2tpns for authenticating tunnel request. Must be
184 the same as the LAC, or authentication will fail. Only actually be
185 used if the LAC requests authentication.
188 <LI><B>primary_dns
</B> (ip address)
189 <LI><B>secondary_dns
</B> (ip address)
<BR>
190 Whenever a PPP connection is established, DNS servers will be sent to the
191 user, both a primary and a secondary. If either is set to
0.0.0.0, then that
192 one will not be sent.
195 <LI><B>primary_radius
</B> (ip address)
196 <LI><B>secondary_radius
</B> (ip address)
<BR>
197 Sets the RADIUS servers used for both authentication and accounting.
198 If the primary server does not respond, then the secondary RADIUS
199 server will be tried.
<br>
200 <strong>Note:
</strong> in addition to the source IP address and
201 identifier, the RADIUS server
<strong>must
</strong> include the source
202 port when detecting duplicates to supress (in order to cope with a
203 large number of sessions comming on-line simultaneously l2tpns uses a
204 set of udp sockets, each with a seperate identifier).
207 <LI><B>primary_radius_port
</B> (short)
208 <LI><B>secondary_radius_port
</B> (short)
<BR>
209 Sets the authentication ports for the primary and secondary RADIUS
210 servers. The accounting port is one more than the authentication
211 port. If no RADIUS ports are given, the authentication port defaults
212 to
1645, and the accounting port to
1646.
215 <LI><B>radius_accounting
</B> (boolean)
<BR>
216 If set to true, then RADIUS accounting packets will be sent. This
217 means that a Start record will be sent when the session is
218 successfully authenticated, and a Stop record will be sent when the
222 <LI><B>radius_secret
</B> (string)
<BR>
223 This secret will be used in all RADIUS queries. If this is not set then
224 RADIUS queries will fail.
227 <LI><B>radius_authtypes
</B> (string)
</BR>
228 A comma separated list of supported RADIUS authentication methods
229 (
<B>pap
</B> or
<B>chap
</B>), in order of preference (default
<B>pap
</B>).
232 <LI><B>allow_duplicate_users
</B> (boolean)
</BR>
233 Allow multiple logins with the same username. If false (the default),
234 any prior session with the same username will be dropped when a new
235 session is established.
238 <LI><B>bind_address
</B> (ip address)
<BR>
239 When the tun interface is created, it is assigned the address
240 specified here. If no address is given,
1.1.1.1 is used. Packets
241 containing user traffic should be routed via this address if given,
242 otherwise the primary address of the machine.
245 <LI><B>peer_address
</B> (ip address)
<BR>
246 Address to send to clients as the default gateway.
249 <LI><B>send_garp
</B> (boolean)
<BR>
250 Determines whether or not to send a gratuitous ARP for the
251 bind_address when the server is ready to handle traffic (default:
253 This value is ignored if BGP is configured.
256 <LI><B>throttle_speed
</B> (int)
<BR>
257 Sets the default speed (in kbits/s) which sessions will be limited to.
258 If this is set to
0, then throttling will not be used at all. Note:
259 You can set this by the CLI, but changes will not affect currently
263 <LI><B>throttle_buckets
</B> (int)
<BR>
264 Number of token buckets to allocate for throttling. Each throttled
265 session requires two buckets (in and out).
268 <LI><B>accounting_dir
</B> (string)
<BR>
269 If set to a directory, then every
5 minutes the current usage for
270 every connected use will be dumped to a file in this directory. Each
271 file dumped begins with a header, where each line is prefixed by #.
272 Following the header is a single line for every connected user, fields
273 separated by a space.
<BR> The fields are username, ip, qos,
274 uptxoctets, downrxoctets. The qos field is
1 if a standard user, and
275 2 if the user is throttled.
278 <LI><B>setuid
</B> (int)
<BR>
279 After starting up and binding the interface, change UID to this. This
280 doesn't work properly.
283 <LI><B>dump_speed
</B> (boolean)
<BR>
284 If set to true, then the current bandwidth utilization will be logged every
285 second. Even if this is disabled, you can see this information by running
286 the
<EM>uptime
</EM> command on the CLI.
289 <LI><B>multi_read_count
</B> (int)
<BR>
290 Number of packets to read off each of the UDP and TUN fds when
291 returned as readable by select (default:
10). Avoids incurring the
292 unnecessary system call overhead of select on busy servers.
295 <LI><B>scheduler_fifo
</B> (boolean)
<BR>
296 Sets the scheduling policy for the l2tpns process to SCHED_FIFO. This
297 causes the kernel to immediately preempt any currently running SCHED_OTHER
298 (normal) process in favour of l2tpns when it becomes runnable.
299 Ignored on uniprocessor systems.
302 <LI><B>lock_pages
</B> (boolean)
<BR>
303 Keep all pages mapped by the l2tpns process in memory.
306 <LI><B>icmp_rate
</B> (int)
<BR>
307 Maximum number of host unreachable ICMP packets to send per second.
310 <LI><B>packet_limit
</B> (int
><BR>
311 Maximum number of packets of downstream traffic to be handled each
312 tenth of a second per session. If zero, no limit is applied (default:
313 0). Intended as a DoS prevention mechanism and not a general
314 throttling control (packets are dropped, not queued).
317 <LI><B>cluster_address
</B> (ip address)
<BR>
318 Multicast cluster address (default:
239.192.13.13). See the section
319 on
<A HREF=
"#Clustering">Clustering
</A> for more information.
322 <LI><B>cluster_interface
</B> (string)
<BR>
323 Interface for cluster packets (default: eth0).
326 <LI><B>cluster_hb_interval
</B> (int)
<BR>
327 Interval in tenths of a second between cluster heartbeat/pings.
330 <LI><B>cluster_hb_timeout
</B> (int)
<BR>
331 Cluster heartbeat timeout in tenths of a second. A new master will be
332 elected when this interval has been passed without seeing a heartbeat
336 <LI><B>cluster_master_min_adv
</B> (int)
<BR>
337 Determines the minumum number of up to date slaves required before the
338 master will drop routes (default:
1).
342 <P>BGP routing configuration is entered by the command:
343 The routing configuration section is entered by the command
344 <DL><DD><B>router bgp
</B> <I>as
</I></DL>
345 where
<I>as
</I> specifies the local AS number.
347 <P>Subsequent lines prefixed with
348 <DL><DD><B>neighbour
</B> <I>peer
</I></DL>
349 define the attributes of BGP neighhbours. Valid commands are:
351 <DD><B>neighbour
</B> <I>peer
</I> <B>remote-as
</B> <I>as
</I>
352 <DD><B>neighbout
</B> <I>peer
</I> <B>timers
</B> <I>keepalive hold
</I>
355 Where
<I>peer
</I> specifies the BGP neighbour as either a hostname or
356 IP address,
<I>as
</I> is the remote AS number and
<I>keepalive
</I>,
357 <I>hold
</I> are the timer values in seconds.
359 <P>Named access-lists are configured using one of the commands:
361 <DD><B>ip access-list standard
</B> <I>name
</I>
362 <DD><B>ip access-list extended
</B> <I>name
</I>
365 <P>Subsequent lines prefixed with
<B>permit
</B> or
<B>deny
</B>
366 define the body of the access-list. Standard access-list syntax:
368 <DD>{
<B>permit
</B>|
<B>deny
</B>}
369 {
<I>host
</I>|
<I>source source-wildcard
</I>|
<B>any
</B>}
370 [{
<I>host
</I>|
<I>destination destination-wildcard
</I>|
<B>any
</B>}]
373 Extended access-lists:
375 <DIV STYLE=
"margin-left: 4em; text-indent: -2em">
376 <P>{
<B>permit
</B>|
<B>deny
</B>}
<B>ip
</B>
377 {
<I>host
</I>|
<I>source source-wildcard
</I>|
<B>any
</B>}
378 {
<I>host
</I>|
<I>destination destination-wildcard
</I>|
<B>any
</B>} [
<B>fragments
</B>]
379 <P>{
<B>permit
</B>|
<B>deny
</B>}
<B>udp
</B>
380 {
<I>host
</I>|
<I>source source-wildcard
</I>|
<B>any
</B>}
381 [{
<B>eq
</B>|
<B>neq
</B>|
<B>gt
</B>|
<B>lt
</B>}
<I>port
</I>|
<B>range
</B> <I>from
</I> <I>to
</I>]
382 {
<I>host
</I>|
<I>destination destination-wildcard
</I>|
<B>any
</B>}
383 [{
<B>eq
</B>|
<B>neq
</B>|
<B>gt
</B>|
<B>lt
</B>}
<I>port
</I>|
<B>range
</B> <I>from
</I> <I>to
</I>]
385 <P>{
<B>permit
</B>|
<B>deny
</B>}
<B>tcp
</B>
386 {
<I>host
</I>|
<I>source source-wildcard
</I>|
<B>any
</B>}
387 [{
<B>eq
</B>|
<B>neq
</B>|
<B>gt
</B>|
<B>lt
</B>}
<I>port
</I>|
<B>range
</B> <I>from
</I> <I>to
</I>]
388 {
<I>host
</I>|
<I>destination destination-wildcard
</I>|
<B>any
</B>}
389 [{
<B>eq
</B>|
<B>neq
</B>|
<B>gt
</B>|
<B>lt
</B>}
<I>port
</I>|
<B>range
</B> <I>from
</I> <I>to
</I>]
390 [{
<B>established
</B>|{
<B>match-any
</B>|
<B>match-all
</B>}
391 {
<B>+
</B>|
<B>-
</B>}{
<B>fin
</B>|
<B>syn
</B>|
<B>rst
</B>|
<B>psh
</B>|
<B>ack
</B>|
<B>urg
</B>}
392 ...|
<B>fragments
</B>]
395 <H3 ID=
"users">users
</H3>
397 Usernames and passwords for the command-line interface are stored in
398 this file. The format is
<I>username
</I><B>:
</B><I>password
</I> where
399 <I>password
</I> may either by plain text, an MD5 digest (prefixed by
400 <B>$
1</B><I>salt
</I><B>$
</B>) or a DES password, distinguished from
401 plain text by the prefix
<B>{crypt}
</B>.
<P>
403 The username
<B>enable
</B> has a special meaning and is used to set
404 the enable password.
<P>
406 <B>Note:
</B> If this file doesn't exist, then anyone who can get to
407 port
23 will be allowed access without a username / password.
<P>
409 <H3 ID=
"ip-pool">ip_pool
</H3>
411 This file is used to configure the IP address pool which user
412 addresses are assigned from. This file should contain either an IP
413 address or a CIDR network per line. e.g.:
<P>
424 Keep in mind that l2tpns can only handle
65535 connections per
425 process, so don't put more than
65535 IP addresses in the
426 configuration file. They will be wasted.
428 <H3 ID=
"build-garden">build-garden
</H3>
430 The garden plugin on startup creates a NAT table called
"garden" then
431 sources the
<B>build-garden
</B> script to populate that table. All
432 packets from gardened users will be sent through this table. Example:
435 iptables -t nat -A garden -p tcp -m tcp --dport
25 -j DNAT --to
192.168.1.1
436 iptables -t nat -A garden -p udp -m udp --dport
53 -j DNAT --to
192.168.1.1
437 iptables -t nat -A garden -p tcp -m tcp --dport
53 -j DNAT --to
192.168.1.1
438 iptables -t nat -A garden -p tcp -m tcp --dport
80 -j DNAT --to
192.168.1.1
439 iptables -t nat -A garden -p tcp -m tcp --dport
110 -j DNAT --to
192.168.1.1
440 iptables -t nat -A garden -p tcp -m tcp --dport
443 -j DNAT --to
192.168.1.1
441 iptables -t nat -A garden -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DNAT --to
192.168.1.1
442 iptables -t nat -A garden -p icmp -j ACCEPT
443 iptables -t nat -A garden -j DROP
446 <H2 ID=
"ControllingtheProcess">Controlling the Process
</H2>
448 A running l2tpns process can be controlled in a number of ways. The primary
449 method of control is by the Command-Line Interface (CLI).
<P>
451 You can also remotely send commands to modules via the nsctl client
454 Also, there are a number of signals that l2tpns understands and takes action
455 when it receives them.
457 <H3 ID=
"Command-LineInterface">Command-Line Interface
</H3>
459 You can access the command line interface by telnet'ing to port
23.
460 There is no IP address restriction, so it's a good idea to firewall
461 this port off from anyone who doesn't need access to it. See
462 <A HREF=
"#users">users
</A> for information on restricting access based
463 on a username and password.
<P>
465 The CLI gives you real-time control over almost everything in
466 the process. The interface is designed to look like a Cisco
467 device, and supports things like command history, line editing and
468 context sensitive help. This is provided by linking with the
469 <A HREF=
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/libcli">libcli
</A>
470 library. Some general documentation of the interface is
471 <A HREF=
"http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=20501&group_id=79019">
474 After you have connected to the telnet port (and perhaps logged in), you
475 will be presented with a
<I>hostname
</I><B>></B> prompt.
<P>
477 Enter
<EM>help
</EM> to get a list of possible commands. A brief
478 overview of the more important commands follows:
481 <LI><B>show session
</B><BR>
482 Without specifying a session ID, this will list all tunnels currently
483 connected. If you specify a session ID, you will be given all
484 information on a single tunnel. Note that the full session list can
485 be around
185 columns wide, so you should probably use a wide terminal
486 to see the list properly.
<P>
487 The columns listed in the overview are:
489 <TR><TD><B>SID
</B></TD><TD>Session ID
</TD></TR>
490 <TR><TD><B>TID
</B></TD><TD>Tunnel ID - Use with
<EM>show tunnel tid
</EM></TD></TR>
491 <TR><TD><B>Username
</B></TD><TD>The username given in the PPP
492 authentication. If this is *, then LCP authentication has not
494 <TR><TD><B>IP
</B></TD><TD>The IP address given to the session. If
495 this is
0.0.0.0, LCP negotiation has not completed.
</TD></TR>
496 <TR><TD><B>I
</B></TD><TD>Intercept - Y or N depending on whether the
497 session is being snooped. See
<EM>snoop
</EM>.
</TD></TR>
498 <TR><TD><B>T
</B></TD><TD>Throttled - Y or N if the session is
499 currently throttled. See
<EM>throttle
</EM>.
</TD></TR>
500 <TR><TD><B>G
</B></TD><TD>Walled Garden - Y or N if the user is
501 trapped in the walled garden. This field is present even if the
502 garden module is not loaded.
</TD></TR>
503 <TR><TD><B>opened
</B></TD><TD>The number of seconds since the
504 session started
</TD></TR>
505 <TR><TD><B>downloaded
</B></TD><TD>Number of bytes downloaded by the user
</TD></TR>
506 <TR><TD><B>uploaded
</B></TD><TD>Number of bytes uploaded by the user
</TD></TR>
507 <TR><TD><B>idle
</B></TD><TD>The number of seconds since traffic was
508 detected on the session
</TD></TR>
509 <TR><TD><B>LAC
</B></TD><TD>The IP address of the LAC the session is
510 connected to.
</TD></TR>
511 <TR><TD><B>CLI
</B></TD><TD>The Calling-Line-Identification field
512 provided during the session setup. This field is generated by the
518 <LI><B>show users
</B><BR>
519 With no arguments, display a list of currently connected users. If an
520 argument is given, the session details for the given username are
524 <LI><B>show tunnel
</B><BR>
525 This will show all the open tunnels in a summary, or detail on a single
526 tunnel if you give a tunnel id.
<P>
527 The columns listed in the overview are:
529 <TR><TD><B>TID
</B></TD><TD>Tunnel ID
</TD></TR>
530 <TR><TD><B>Hostname
</B></TD><TD>The hostname for the tunnel as
531 provided by the LAC. This has no relation to DNS, it is just
532 a text field.
</TD></TR>
533 <TR><TD><B>IP
</B></TD><TD>The IP address of the LAC
</TD></TR>
534 <TR><TD><B>State
</B></TD><TD>Tunnel state - Free, Open, Dieing,
536 <TR><TD><B>Sessions
</B></TD><TD>The number of open sessions on the
542 <LI><B>show pool
</B><BR>
543 Displays the current IP address pool allocation. This will only display
544 addresses that are in use, or are reserved for re-allocation to a
545 disconnected user.
<P>
546 If an address is not currently in use, but has been used, then in the User
547 column the username will be shown in square brackets, followed by the time
548 since the address was used:
550 IP Address Used Session User
551 192.168.100.6 N [joe.user]
1548s
556 <LI><B>show radius
</B><BR>
557 Show a summary of the in-use RADIUS sessions. This list should not be very
558 long, as RADIUS sessions should be cleaned up as soon as they are used. The
561 <TR><TD><B>Radius
</B></TD><TD>The ID of the RADIUS request. This is
562 sent in the packet to the RADIUS server for identification.
</TD></TR>
563 <TR><TD><B>State
</B></TD><TD>The state of the request - WAIT, CHAP,
564 AUTH, IPCP, START, STOP, NULL.
</TD></TR>
565 <TR><TD><B>Session
</B></TD><TD>The session ID that this RADIUS
566 request is associated with
</TD></TR>
567 <TR><TD><B>Retry
</B></TD><TD>If a response does not appear to the
568 request, it will retry at this time. This is a unix timestamp.
</TD></TR>
569 <TR><TD><B>Try
</B></TD><TD>Retry count. The RADIUS request is
570 discarded after
3 retries.
</TD></TR>
575 <LI><B>show running-config
</B><BR>
576 This will list the current running configuration. This is in a format that
577 can either be pasted into the configuration file, or run directly at the
582 <LI><B>show counters
</B><BR>
583 Internally, counters are kept of key values, such as bytes and packets
584 transferred, as well as function call counters. This function displays all
585 these counters, and is probably only useful for debugging.
<P>
586 You can reset these counters by running
<EM>clear counters
</EM>.
590 <LI><B>show cluster
</B><BR>
591 Show cluster status. Shows the cluster state for this server
592 (Master/Slave), information about known peers and (for slaves) the
593 master IP address, last packet seen and up-to-date status.
<P>
594 See
<A HREF=
"#Clustering">Clustering
</A> for more information.
598 <LI><B>write memory
</B><BR>
599 This will write the current running configuration to the config file
600 <B>startup-config
</B>, which will be run on a restart.
605 You must specify a username, IP address and port. All packets for the
606 current session for that username will be forwarded to the given
607 host/port. Specify
<EM>no snoop username
</EM> to disable interception
610 If you want interception to be permanent, you will have to modify the RADIUS
611 response for the user. See
<A HREF=
"#Interception">Interception
</A>.
615 <LI><B>throttle
</B><BR>
616 You must specify a username, which will be throttled for the current
617 session. Specify
<EM>no throttle username
</EM> to disable throttling
618 for the current session.
<P>
620 If you want throttling to be permanent, you will have to modify the
621 RADIUS response for the user. See
<A HREF=
"#Throttling">Throttling
</A>.
625 <LI><B>drop session
</B><BR>
626 This will cleanly disconnect a session. You must specify a session id, which
627 you can get from
<EM>show session
</EM>. This will send a disconnect message
632 <LI><B>drop tunnel
</B><BR>
633 This will cleanly disconnect a tunnel, as well as all sessions on that
634 tunnel. It will send a disconnect message for each session individually, and
635 after
10 seconds it will send a tunnel disconnect message.
639 <LI><B>uptime
</B><BR>
640 This will show how long the l2tpns process has been running, and the current
641 bandwidth utilization:
643 17:
10:
35 up
8 days,
2212 users, load average:
0.21,
0.17,
0.16
644 Bandwidth: UDP-ETH:
6/
6 ETH-UDP:
13/
13 TOTAL:
37.6 IN:
3033 OUT:
2569
646 The bandwidth line contains
4 sets of values.
<BR>
647 UDP-ETH is the current bandwidth going from the LAC to the ethernet
648 (user uploads), in mbits/sec.
<BR>
649 ETH-UDP is the current bandwidth going from ethernet to the LAC (user
651 TOTAL is the total aggregate bandwidth in mbits/s.
<BR>
652 IN and OUT are packets/per-second going between UDP-ETH and ETH-UDP.
654 These counters are updated every second.
658 <LI><B>configure terminal
</B><BR>
659 Enter configuration mode. Use
<EM>exit
</EM> or ^Z to exit this mode.
660 The following commands are valid in this mode:
<P>
663 <LI><B>load plugin
</B><BR>
664 Load a plugin. You must specify the plugin name, and it will search in
665 /usr/lib/l2tpns for
<EM>plugin
</EM>.so. You can unload a loaded plugin with
666 <EM>remove plugin
</EM>.
671 Set a configuration variable. You must specify the variable name, and
672 the value. If the value contains any spaces, you should quote the
673 value with double (
") or single (') quotes.<P>
675 You can set any <A HREF="#startup-config
">startup-config</A> value in
676 this way, although some may require a restart to take effect.<P>
680 <H3 ID="nsctl
">nsctl</H3>
682 nsctl allows messages to be passed to plugins.<P>
684 Arguments are <EM>command</EM> and optional <EM>args</EM>. See
685 <STRONG>nsctl</STRONG>(8) for more details.<P>
687 Built-in command are <EM>load_plugin</EM>, <EM>unload_plugin</EM> and
688 <EM>help</EM>. Any other commands are passed to plugins for processing.
690 <H3 ID="Signals
">Signals</H3>
692 While the process is running, you can send it a few different signals, using
698 The signals understood are:
700 <DT>SIGHUP</DT><DD>Reload the config from disk and re-open log file.</DD>
701 <DT>SIGTERM, SIGINT</DT><DD>Stop process. Tunnels and sessions are not
702 terminated. This signal should be used to stop l2tpns on a
703 <A HREF="#Clustering
">cluster node</A> where there are other machines to
704 continue handling traffic.</DD>
705 <DT>SIGQUIT</DT><DD>Shut down tunnels and sessions, exit process when
709 <H2 ID="Throttling
">Throttling</H2>
711 l2tpns contains support for slowing down user sessions to whatever speed you
712 desire. You must first enable the global setting <EM>throttle_speed</EM>
713 before this will be activated.<P>
715 If you wish a session to be throttled permanently, you should set the
716 Vendor-Specific RADIUS value <B>Cisco-Avpair="throttle=yes
"</B>, which
717 will be handled by the <EM>autothrottle</EM> module.<P>
719 Otherwise, you can enable and disable throttling an active session using
720 the <EM>throttle</EM> CLI command.<P>
722 <H2 ID="Interception
">Interception</H2>
724 You may have to deal with legal requirements to be able to intercept a
725 user's traffic at any time. l2tpns allows you to begin and end interception
726 on the fly, as well as at authentication time.<P>
728 When a user is being intercepted, a copy of every packet they send and
729 receive will be sent wrapped in a UDP packet to the IP address and port set
730 in the <EM>snoop_host</EM> and <EM>snoop_port</EM> configuration
733 The UDP packet contains just the raw IP frame, with no extra headers.<P>
735 To enable interception on a connected user, use the <EM>snoop username</EM>
736 and <EM>no snoop username</EM> CLI commands. These will enable interception
739 If you wish the user to be intercepted whenever they reconnect, you will
740 need to modify the RADIUS response to include the Vendor-Specific value
741 <B>Cisco-Avpair="intercept=yes
"</B>. For this feature to be enabled,
742 you need to have the <EM>autosnoop</EM> module loaded.<P>
744 <H2 ID="Authentication
">Authentication</H2>
746 Whenever a session connects, it is not fully set up until authentication is
747 completed. The remote end must send a PPP CHAP or PPP PAP authentication
748 request to l2tpns.<P>
750 This request is sent to the RADIUS server, which will hopefully respond with
751 Auth-Accept or Auth-Reject.<P>
753 If Auth-Accept is received, the session is set up and an IP address is
754 assigned. The RADIUS server can include a Framed-IP-Address field in the
755 reply, and that address will be assigned to the client. It can also include
756 specific DNS servers, and a Framed-Route if that is required.<P>
758 If Auth-Reject is received, then the client is sent a PPP AUTHNAK packet,
759 at which point they should disconnect. The exception to this is when the
760 walled garden module is loaded, in which case the user still receives the
761 PPP AUTHACK, but their session is flagged as being a garden'd user, and they
762 should not receive any service.<P>
764 The RADIUS reply can also contain a Vendor-Specific attribute called
765 Cisco-Avpair. This field is a freeform text field that most Cisco
766 devices understand to contain configuration instructions for the session. In
767 the case of l2tpns it is expected to be of the form
769 key=value,key2=value2,key3=value3,key<EM>n</EM>=<EM>value</EM>
772 Each key-value pair is separated and passed to any modules loaded. The
773 <EM>autosnoop</EM> and <EM>autothrottle</EM> understand the keys
774 <EM>intercept</EM> and <EM>throttle</EM> respectively. For example, to have
775 a user who is to be throttled and intercepted, the Cisco-Avpair value should
778 intercept=yes,throttle=yes
781 <H2 ID="Plugins
">Plugins</H2>
783 So as to make l2tpns as flexible as possible (I know the core code is pretty
784 difficult to understand), it includes a plugin API, which you can use to
785 hook into certain events.<P>
787 There are a few example modules included - autosnoop, autothrottle and
790 When an event happens that has a hook, l2tpns looks for a predefined
791 function name in every loaded module, and runs them in the order the modules
794 The function should return <B>PLUGIN_RET_OK</B> if it is all OK. If it returns
795 <B>PLUGIN_RET_STOP</B>, then it is assumed to have worked, but that no further
796 modules should be run for this event.<P>
797 A return of <B>PLUGIN_RET_ERROR</B> means that this module failed, and
798 no further processing should be done for this event. <EM>Use this with care.</EM>
800 Every event function called takes a specific structure named
801 param_<EM>event</EM>, which varies in content with each event. The
802 function name for each event will be <B>plugin_<EM>event</EM></B>,
803 so for the event <EM>timer</EM>, the function declaration should look like:
805 int plugin_timer(struct param_timer *data);
808 A list of the available events follows, with a list of all the fields in the
810 <TABLE CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0><TR BGCOLOR=LIGHTGREEN><TD>
811 <TABLE CELLSPACING=1 CELLPADDING=3>
812 <TR BGCOLOR=LIGHTGREEN><TH><B>Event</B></TH><TH><B>Description</B></TH><TH><B>Parameters</B></TH></TR>
813 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>pre_auth</B></TD>
814 <TD>This is called after a RADIUS response has been
815 received, but before it has been processed by the
816 code. This will allow you to modify the response in
821 <LI>t - Tunnel ID</LI>
822 <LI>s - Session ID</LI>
825 <LI>protocol (0xC023 for PAP, 0xC223 for CHAP)</LI>
826 <LI>continue_auth - Set to 0 to stop processing authentication modules</LI>
830 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>post_auth</B></TD>
831 <TD>This is called after a RADIUS response has been
832 received, and the basic checks have been performed. This
833 is what the garden module uses to force authentication
838 <LI>t - Tunnel ID</LI>
839 <LI>s - Session ID</LI>
841 <LI>auth_allowed - This is already set to true or
842 false depending on whether authentication has been
843 allowed so far. You can set this to 1 or 0 to force
844 allow or disallow authentication</LI>
845 <LI>protocol (0xC023 for PAP, 0xC223 for CHAP)</LI>
849 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>packet_rx</B></TD>
850 <TD>This is called whenever a session receives a
851 packet. <FONT COLOR=RED>Use this sparingly, as this will
852 seriously slow down the system.</FONT>
856 <LI>t - Tunnel ID</LI>
857 <LI>s - Session ID</LI>
858 <LI>buf - The raw packet data</LI>
859 <LI>len - The length of buf</LI>
863 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>packet_tx</B></TD>
864 <TD>This is called whenever a session sends a
865 packet. <FONT COLOR=RED>Use this sparingly, as this will
866 seriously slow down the system.</FONT>
870 <LI>t - Tunnel ID</LI>
871 <LI>s - Session ID</LI>
872 <LI>buf - The raw packet data</LI>
873 <LI>len - The length of buf</LI>
877 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>timer</B></TD>
878 <TD>This is run every second, no matter what is happening.
879 This is called from a signal handler, so make sure anything
884 <LI>time_now - The current unix timestamp</LI>
888 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>new_session</B></TD>
889 <TD>This is called after a session is fully set up. The
890 session is now ready to handle traffic.
894 <LI>t - Tunnel ID</LI>
895 <LI>s - Session ID</LI>
899 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>kill_session</B></TD>
900 <TD>This is called when a session is about to be shut down.
901 This may be called multiple times for the same session.
905 <LI>t - Tunnel ID</LI>
906 <LI>s - Session ID</LI>
910 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>radius_response</B></TD>
911 <TD>This is called whenever a RADIUS response includes a
912 Cisco-Avpair value. The value is split up into
913 <EM>key=value</EM> pairs, and each is processed through all
918 <LI>t - Tunnel ID</LI>
919 <LI>s - Session ID</LI>
925 <TR VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR=WHITE><TD><B>control</B></TD>
926 <TD>This is called in whenever a nsctl packet is received.
927 This should handle the packet and form a response if
932 <LI>buf - The raw packet data</LI>
933 <LI>l - The raw packet data length</LI>
934 <LI>source_ip - Where the request came from</LI>
935 <LI>source_port - Where the request came from</LI>
936 <LI>response - Allocate a buffer and put your response in here</LI>
937 <LI>response_length - Length of response</LI>
938 <LI>send_response - true or false whether a response
939 should be sent. If you set this to true, you must
940 allocate a response buffer.</LI>
941 <LI>type - Type of request (see nsctl.c)</LI>
942 <LI>id - ID of request</LI>
943 <LI>data - I'm really not sure</LI>
944 <LI>data_length - Length of data</LI>
951 <H2 ID="WalledGarden
">Walled Garden</H2>
953 Walled Garden is implemented so that you can provide perhaps limited service
954 to sessions that incorrectly authenticate.<P>
956 Whenever a session provides incorrect authentication, and the
957 RADIUS server responds with Auth-Reject, the walled garden module
958 (if loaded) will force authentication to succeed, but set the flag
959 <EM>garden</EM> in the session structure, and adds an iptables rule to
960 the <B>garden_users</B> chain to force all packets for the session's IP
961 address to traverse the <B>garden</B> chain.<P>
963 This doesn't <EM>just work</EM>. To set this all up, you will to
964 setup the <B>garden</B> nat table with the
965 <A HREF="#build-garden
">build-garden</A> script with rules to limit
966 user's traffic. For example, to force all traffic except DNS to be
967 forwarded to 192.168.1.1, add these entries to your
968 <EM>build-garden</EM>:
970 iptables -t nat -A garden -p tcp --dport ! 53 -j DNAT --to 192.168.1.1
971 iptables -t nat -A garden -p udp --dport ! 53 -j DNAT --to 192.168.1.1
974 l2tpns will add entries to the garden_users chain as appropriate.<P>
976 You can check the amount of traffic being captured using the following
979 iptables -t nat -L garden -nvx
982 <H2 ID="Filtering
">Filtering</H2>
984 Sessions may be filtered by specifying <B>Filter-Id</B> attributes in
985 the RADIUS reply. <I>filter</I>.<B>in</B> specifies that the named
986 access-list <I>filter</I> should be applied to traffic from the
987 customer, <I>filter</I>.<B>out</B> specifies a list for traffic to the
990 <H2 ID="Clustering
">Clustering</H2>
992 An l2tpns cluster consists of of one* or more servers configured with
993 the same configuration, notably the multicast <B>cluster_address</B>.<P>
995 *A stand-alone server is simply a degraded cluster.<P>
997 Initially servers come up as cluster slaves, and periodically (every
998 <B>cluster_hb_interval</B>/10 seconds) send out ping packets
999 containing the start time of the process to the multicast
1000 <B>cluster_address</B>.<P>
1002 A cluster master sends heartbeat rather than ping packets, which
1003 contain those session and tunnel changes since the last heartbeat.<P>
1005 When a slave has not seen a heartbeat within
1006 <B>cluster_hb_timeout</B>/10 seconds it "elects
" a new master by
1007 examining the list of peers it has seen pings from and determines
1008 which of these and itself is the "best
" candidate to be master.
1009 "Best
" in this context means the server with the highest uptime (the
1010 highest IP address is used as a tie-breaker in the case of equal
1013 After discovering a master, and determining that it is up-to-date (has
1014 seen an update for all in-use sessions and tunnels from heartbeat
1015 packets) will raise a route (see <A HREF="#Routing
">Routing</A>) for
1016 the <B>bind_address</B> and for all addresses/networks in
1017 <B>ip_pool</B>. Any packets recieved by the slave which would alter
1018 the session state, as well as packets for throttled or gardened
1019 sessions are forwarded to the master for handling. In addition, byte
1020 counters for session traffic are periodically forwarded.<P>
1022 A master, when determining that it has at least one up-to-date slave
1023 will drop all routes (raising them again if all slaves disappear) and
1024 subsequently handle only packets forwarded to it by the slaves.<P>
1026 <H2 ID="Routing
">Routing</H2>
1027 If you are running a single instance, you may simply statically route
1028 the IP pools to the <B>bind_address</B> (l2tpns will send a gratuitous
1031 For a cluster, configure the members as BGP neighbours on your router
1032 and configure multi-path load-balancing. Cisco uses "maximum-paths
1033 ibgp
" for IBGP. If this is not supported by your IOS revision, you
1034 can use "maximum-paths
" (which works for EBGP) and set
1035 <B>as_number</B> to a private value such as 64512.<P>
1037 <H2 ID="AvoidingFragmentation
">Avoiding Fragmentation</H2>
1039 Fragmentation of encapsulated return packets to the LAC may be avoided
1040 for TCP sessions by adding a firewall rule to clamps the MSS on
1041 outgoing SYN packets.
1043 The following is appropriate for interfaces with a typical MTU of
1047 iptables -A FORWARD -i tun+ -o eth0 \
1048 -p tcp --tcp-flags SYN,RST SYN \
1049 -m tcpmss --mss 1413:1600 \
1050 -j TCPMSS --set-mss 1412
1053 <H2 ID="Performance
">Performance</H2>
1055 Performance is great.<P>
1057 I'd like to include some pretty graphs here that show a linear performance
1058 increase, with no impact by number of connected sessions.<P>
1060 That's really what it looks like.<P>
1064 <A HREF="mailto:l2tpns-users@lists.sourceforge.net?subject=L2TPNS%
20Documentation
">l2tpns-users@lists.sourceforge.net</A>