Overview of changes in 2.4
==========================
New features
------------
Seamless client IP/port floating
Added new packet format P_DATA_V2, which includes peer-id. If both the
server and client support it, the client sends all data packets in
the new format. When a data packet arrives, the server identifies peer
by peer-id. If peer's ip/port has changed, server assumes that
client has floated, verifies HMAC and updates ip/port in internal structs.
This allows the connection to be immediatly restored, instead of requiring
a TLS handshake before the server accepts packets from the new client
ip/port.
Data channel cipher negotiation
Data channel ciphers (``--cipher``) are now by default negotiated. If a
client advertises support for Negotiable Crypto Parameters (NCP), the
server will choose a cipher (by default AES-256-GCM) for the data channel,
and tell the client to use that cipher. Data channel cipher negotiation
can be controlled using ``--ncp-ciphers`` and ``--ncp-disable``.
A more limited version also works in client-to-server and server-to-client
scenarios where one of the end points uses a v2.4 client or server and the
other side uses an older version. In such scenarios the v2.4 side will
change to the ``--cipher`` set by the remote side, if permitted by by
``--ncp-ciphers``. For example, a v2.4 client with ``--cipher BF-CBC``
and ``ncp-ciphers AES-256-GCM:AES-256-CBC`` can connect to both a v2.3
server with ``cipher BF-CBC`` as well as a server with
``cipher AES-256-CBC`` in its config. The other way around, a v2.3 client
with either ``cipher BF-CBC`` or ``cipher AES-256-CBC`` can connect to a
v2.4 server with e.g. ``cipher BF-CBC`` and
``ncp-ciphers AES-256-GCM:AES-256-CBC`` in its config. For this to work
it requires that OpenVPN was built without disabling OCC support.
AEAD (GCM) data channel cipher support
The data channel now supports AEAD ciphers (currently only GCM). The AEAD
packet format has a smaller crypto overhead than the CBC packet format,
(e.g. 20 bytes per packet for AES-128-GCM instead of 36 bytes per packet
for AES-128-CBC + HMAC-SHA1).
ECDH key exchange
The TLS control channel now supports for elliptic curve diffie-hellmann
key exchange (ECDH).
Dualstack round-robin DNS client connect
Instead of only using the first address of each ``--remote`` OpenVPN
will now try all addresses (IPv6 and IPv4) of a ``--remote`` entry.
Support for providing IPv6 DNS servers
A new DHCP sub-option ``DNS6`` is added alongside with the already existing
``DNS`` sub-option. This is used to provide DNS resolvers available over
IPv6. This may be pushed to clients where `` --up`` scripts and ``--plugin``
can act upon it through the ``foreign_option_<n>`` environment variables.
Support for the Windows client picking up this new sub-option is added,
however IPv6 DNS resolvers need to be configured via ``netsh`` which requires
administrator privileges unless the new interactive services on Windows is
being used. If the interactive service is used, this service will execute
``netsh`` in the background with the proper privileges.
New improved Windows Background service
The new OpenVPNService is based on openvpnserv2, a complete rewrite of the OpenVPN
service wrapper. It is intended for launching OpenVPN instances that should be
up at all times, instead of being manually launched by a user. OpenVPNService is
able to restart individual OpenVPN processes if they crash, and it also works
properly on recent Windows versions. OpenVPNServiceLegacy tends to work poorly,
if at all, on newer Windows versions (8+) and its use is not recommended.
New interactive Windows service
The installer starts OpenVPNServiceInteractive automatically and configures
it to start at system startup.
The interactive Windows service allows unprivileged users to start
OpenVPN connections in the global config directory (usually
C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config) using OpenVPN GUI without any
extra configuration.
Users who belong to the built-in Administrator group or to the
local "OpenVPN Administrator" group can also store configuration
files under %USERPROFILE%\\OpenVPN\\config for use with the
interactive service.
redirect-gateway ipv6
OpenVPN has now feature parity between IPv4 and IPv6 for redirect
gateway including the handling of overlapping IPv6 routes with
IPv6 remote VPN server address.
LZ4 Compression and pushable compression
Additionally to LZO compression OpenVPN now also supports LZ4 compression.
Compression options are now pushable from the server.
Filter pulled options client-side: pull-filter
New option to explicitly allow or reject options pushed by the server.
May be used multiple times and is applied in the order specified.
Per-client remove push options: push-remove
New option to remove options on a per-client basis from the "push" list
(more fine-grained than ``--push-reset``).
Http proxy password inside config file
Http proxy passwords can be specified with the inline file option
``<http-proxy-user-pass>`` .. ``</http-proxy-user-pass>``
Windows version detection
Windows version is detected, logged and possibly signalled to server
(IV_PLAT_VER=<nn> if ``--push-peer-info`` is set on client).
Authentication tokens
In situations where it is not suitable to save user passwords on the client,
OpenVPN has support for pushing a --auth-token since v2.3. This option is
pushed from the server to the client with a token value to be used instead
of the users password. For this to work, the authentication plug-in would
need to implement this support as well. In OpenVPN 2.4 --auth-gen-token
is introduced, which will allow the OpenVPN server to generate a random
token and push it to the client without any changes to the authentication
modules. When the clients need to re-authenticate the OpenVPN server will
do the authentication internally, instead of sending the re-authentication
request to the authentication module . This feature is especially
useful in configurations which use One Time Password (OTP) authentication
schemes, as this allows the tunnel keys to be renegotiated regularly without
any need to supply new OTP codes.
keying-material-exporter
Keying Material Exporter [RFC-5705] allow additional keying material to be
derived from existing TLS channel.
Mac OS X Keychain management client
Added contrib/keychain-mcd which allows to use Mac OS X keychain
certificates with OpenVPN.
Android platform support
Support for running on Android using Android's VPNService API has been added.
See doc/android.txt for more details. This support is primarily used in
the OpenVPN for Android app (https://github.com/schwabe/ics-openvpn)
AIX platform support
AIX platform support has been added. The support only includes tap
devices since AIX does not provide tun interface.
Control channel encryption (``--tls-crypt``)
Use a pre-shared static key (like the ``--tls-auth`` key) to encrypt control
channel packets. Provides more privacy, some obfuscation and poor-man's
post-quantum security.
Asynchronous push reply
Plug-ins providing support for deferred authentication can benefit from a more
responsive authentication where the server sends PUSH_REPLY immediately once
the authentication result is ready, instead of waiting for the the client to
to send PUSH_REQUEST once more. This requires OpenVPN to be built with
``./configure --enable-async-push``. This is a compile-time only switch.
Deprecated features
-------------------
- ``--key-method 1`` is deprecated in 2.4 and will be removed in 2.5. Migrate
away from ``--key-method 1`` as soon as possible. The recommended approach
is to remove the ``--key-method`` option from the configuration files, OpenVPN
will then use ``--key-method 2`` by default. Note that this requires changing
the option in both the client and server side configs.
- CRLs are now handled by the crypto library (OpenSSL or mbed TLS), instead of
inside OpenVPN itself. The crypto library implementations are more strict
than the OpenVPN implementation was. This might reject peer certificates
that would previously be accepted. If this occurs, OpenVPN will log the
crypto library's error description.
- ``--tls-remote`` is removed in 2.4, as indicated in the 2.3 man-pages. Similar
functionality is provided via ``--verify-x509-name``, which does the same job in
a better way.
- ``--compat-names`` and ``--no-name-remapping`` were deprecated in 2.3 and will
be removed in 2.5. All scripts and plug-ins depending on the old non-standard
X.509 subject formatting must be updated to the standardized formatting. See
the man page for more information.
- ``--no-iv`` is deprecated in 2.4 and will be removed in 2.5.
User-visible Changes
--------------------
- When using ciphers with cipher blocks less than 128-bits,
OpenVPN will complain loudly if the configuration uses ciphers considered
weak, such as the SWEET32 attack vector. In such scenarios, OpenVPN will by
default renegotiate for each 64MB of transported data (``--reneg-bytes``).
This renegotiation can be disabled, but is HIGHLY DISCOURAGED.
- For certificate DNs with duplicate fields, e.g. "OU=one,OU=two", both fields
are now exported to the environment, where each second and later occurrence
of a field get _$N appended to it's field name, starting at N=1. For the
example above, that would result in e.g. X509_0_OU=one, X509_0_OU_1=two.
Note that this breaks setups that rely on the fact that OpenVPN would
previously (incorrectly) only export the last occurence of a field.
- ``proto udp`` and ``proto tcp`` now use both IPv4 and IPv6. The new
options ``proto udp4`` and ``proto tcp4`` use IPv4 only.
- ``--sndbuf`` and ``--recvbuf`` default now to OS defaults instead of 64k
- OpenVPN exits with an error if an option has extra parameters;
previously they were silently ignored
- ``--tls-auth`` always requires OpenVPN static key files and will no
longer work with free form files
- ``--proto udp6/tcp6`` in server mode will now try to always listen to
both IPv4 and IPv6 on platforms that allow it. Use ``--bind ipv6only``
to explicitly listen only on IPv6.
- Removed ``--enable-password-save`` from configure. This option is now
always enabled.
- Stricter default TLS cipher list (override with ``--tls-cipher``), that now
also disables:
* Non-ephemeral key exchange using static (EC)DH keys
* DSS private keys
- mbed TLS builds: changed the tls_digest_N values exported to the script
environment to be equal to the ones exported by OpenSSL builds, namely
the certificate fingerprint (was the hash of the 'to be signed' data).
- mbed TLS builds: minimum RSA key size is now 2048 bits. Shorter keys will
not be accepted, both local and from the peer.
- ``--connect-timeout`` now specifies the timeout until the first TLS packet
is received (identical to ``--server-poll-timeout``) and this timeout now
includes the removed socks proxy timeout and http proxy timeout.
In ``--static`` mode ``connect-timeout`` specifies the timeout for TCP and
proxy connection establishment
- ``--connect-retry-max`` now specifies the maximum number of unsuccessful
attempts of each remote/connection entry before exiting.
- ``--http-proxy-timeout`` and the static non-changeable socks timeout (5s)
have been folded into a "unified" ``--connect-timeout`` which covers all
steps needed to connect to the server, up to the start of the TLS exchange.
The default value has been raised to 120s, to handle slow http/socks
proxies graciously. The old "fail TCP fast" behaviour can be achieved by
adding "``--connect-timeout 10``" to the client config.
- ``--http-proxy-retry`` and ``--sock-proxy-retry`` have been removed. Proxy connections
will now behave like regular connection entries and generate a USR1 on failure.
- ``--connect-retry`` gets an optional second argument that specifies the maximum
time in seconds to wait between reconnection attempts when an exponential
backoff is triggered due to repeated retries. Default = 300 seconds.
- Data channel cipher negotiation (see New features section) can override
ciphers configured in the config file. Use ``--ncp-disable`` if you do not want
this behavior.
- All tun devices on all platforms are always considered to be IPv6
capable. The ``--tun-ipv6`` option is ignored (behaves like it is always
on).
- On the client side recursively routed packets, which have the same destination
as the VPN server, are dropped. This can be disabled with
--allow-recursive-routing option.
- On Windows, when the ``--register-dns`` option is set, OpenVPN no longer
restarts the ``dnscache`` service - this had unwanted side effects, and
seems to be no longer necessary with currently supported Windows versions.
- If no flags are given, and the interactive Windows service is used, "def1"
is implicitly set (because "delete and later reinstall the existing
default route" does not work well here). If not using the service,
the old behaviour is kept.
- OpenVPN now reloads a CRL only if the modication time or file size has
changed, instead of for each new connection. This reduces the connection
setup time, in particular when using large CRLs.
- OpenVPN now ships with more up-to-date systemd unit files which take advantage
of the improved service management as well as some hardening steps. The
configuration files are picked up from the /etc/openvpn/server/ and
/etc/openvpn/client/ directories (depending on unit file). This also avoids
these new unit files and how they work to collide with older pre-existing
unit files.
- Using ``--no-iv`` (which is generally not a recommended setup) will
require explicitly disabling NCP with ``--disable-ncp``. This is
intentional because NCP will by default use AES-GCM, which requires
an IV - so we want users of that option to consciously reconsider.
Maintainer-visible changes
--------------------------
- OpenVPN no longer supports building with crypto support, but without TLS
support. As a consequence, OPENSSL_CRYPTO_{CFLAGS,LIBS} and
OPENSSL_SSL_{CFLAGS,LIBS} have been merged into OPENSSL_{CFLAGS,LIBS}. This
is particularly relevant for maintainers who build their own OpenSSL library,
e.g. when cross-compiling.
- Linux distributions using systemd is highly encouraged to ship these new unit
files instead of older ones, to provide a unified behaviour across systemd
based Linux distributions.
- With OpenVPN v2.4, the project has moved over to depend on and actively use
the official C99 standard (-std=c99). This may fail on some older compiler/libc
header combinations. In most of these situations it is recommended to
use -std=gnu99 in CFLAGS. This is known to be needed when doing
i386/i686 builds on RHEL5.
Version 2.4.1
=============
- ``--remote-cert-ku`` now only requires the certificate to have at least the
bits set of one of the values in the supplied list, instead of requiring an
exact match to one of the values in the list.
- ``--remote-cert-tls`` now only requires that a keyUsage is present in the
certificate, and leaves the verification of the value up to the crypto
library, which has more information (i.e. the key exchange method in use)
to verify that the keyUsage is correct.
- ``--ns-cert-type`` is deprecated. Use ``--remote-cert-tls`` instead.
The nsCertType x509 extension is very old, and barely used.
``--remote-cert-tls`` uses the far more common keyUsage and extendedKeyUsage
extension instead. Make sure your certificates carry these to be able to
use ``--remote-cert-tls``.