A while back, I made a feature request to allow configuration of the Strongswan “auto” parameter via the WUI. This made its way into the WUI as the “On-Demand” feature a while back (thank you!!!) https://bugzilla.ipfire.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10733
At the time, I had posted a few links to messages on the StrongSwan mailing list that indicated that auto=route results in superior reliability, and our experience bears this out, but the default remains “auto=start”.
In order to support Windows roadwarrior connections, IPFire’s host cert needs a dns Subject Alt Name, so I had to delete all of our tunnels and certs, then recreate them. This meant that I had to change both sides of ~20 tunnels from the default “Always On” (auto=start) to “On Demand” (auto=route).
Coincidentally, this message from one of the developers came across the StrongSwan Users list tonight, which basically makes clear that auto=start should not be used: https://lists.strongswan.org/pipermail/users/2019-February/013373.html
The relevant quotation: “Use auto=route. Auto=start is not reliable.”
This raises the question as to why auto=start is still the default in IPFire.
Thoughts?
Tom