Our Web SSL VPN
article written back in 2011 introduced this new wave of VPN services.
This article extends the topic by covering the installation and
configuration of Cisco’s SSL AnyConnect VPN for Cisco IOS Routers.
Web SSL VPN delivers the following three modes of SSL VPN access:
• Clientless -
Clientless mode provides secure access to private web resources and
will provide access to web content. This mode is useful for accessing
most content that you would expect to access in a web browser such as
Internet access, web-based intranet, webmail etc.
• Thin Client
(port-forwarding Java applet) - Thin client mode extends the capability
of the cryptographic functions of the web browser to enable remote
access to TCP-based applications such as Post Office Protocol version 3
(POP3), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Internet Message Access
protocol (IMAP), Telnet and Secure Shell (SSH).
• Tunnel Mode (AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client) - Full tunnel client mode offers extensive application support through its dynamically downloaded Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client
(next-generation SSL VPN Client) for SSL VPN. Full tunnel client mode
delivers a lightweight, centrally configured and easy-to-support SSL VPN
tunneling client that provides network layer access to virtually any
application.
The advantage of SSL VPN comes from its
accessibility from almost any Internet-connected system without needing
to install additional desktop software.
Introducing Cisco SSL AnyConnect VPN - WebVPN
Cisco SSL AnyConnect VPN is a real trend
these days – it allows remote users to access enterprise networks from
anywhere on the Internet through an SSL VPN gateway using a web browser.
During the establishment of the SSL VPN with the gateway, the client
downloads and installs the AnyConnect VPN client from VPN gateway. This
feature allows easy access to services within the company’s network and
simplifies the VPN configuration on the SSL VPN gateway, reducing
dramatically the administrative overhead for system administrators.
The Cisco secure WebVPN router login screen
The Cisco SSL AnyConnect VPN client was
introduced in Cisco IOS 12.4(15)T and has been in development since
then. Today, Cisco SSL AnyConnect VPN client supports all Windows
platforms, Linux Redhat, Fedora, CentOS, iPhones, iPads and Android
mobile phones.
Regardless of the client (PC, smartphone
etc), the router configuration remains the same, while the appropriate
VPN client software is downloaded by the client connecting to the VPN
gateway (router).
Smartphones such as iPhones (iPAD
included) and Android can download the Cisco VPN AnyConnect Secure
Mobility Client directly from iTunes (Apple) or the Google Play store
respectively (android phones). To download it, connect to your store
and search for ‘Cisco AnyConnect’.
IOS version 15.1.4(M7) or greater
is required to correctly support Anyconnect Secure Mobility Client for
Smartphone clients (Android, iPhone, etc). For Windows Anyconnect
clients, it is highly recommended to use IOS 12.4(20)T or greater. Also keep in mind that IOS 12.4 does not require any license activation for the Webvpn service.
To download VPN AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client packages files for Windows, MacOS X and Linux platforms, free, simply visit our Cisco Download section. The latest version of the client was made available at the time of writing this article.
Once our client is downloaded and
installed on our Windows 7 workstation it will be ready to initiate the
VPN connection to our VPN Gateway:
Steps to Configure and Enable SSL AnyConnect VPN Secure Mobility Client
- Upload AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client to our Cisco Router
- Generate RSA Keys
- Declare the Trustpoint & Create Self-Signed Certificate
- Configure WebVPN Pool IP addresses assigned to the VPN Users
- Enable and Configure AAA Authentication for SSL VPN & Create User Accounts
- Enable WebVPN License
- Configure and enable WebVPN Gateway
- Configure and enable SSL VPN Context
- Configure default group policy, authentication list and final parameters for WebVPN
Note: The complete working configuration for WebSSL VPN AnyConnect can be found at the end of this article.
Uploading AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client Package to Our Cisco Router
The first step is to upload the Cisco
AnyConnect client to the router’s flash memory. Depending on the type
of clients you might need to upload more than one VPN AnyConnect client
package. For our article, we will be using the latest VPN AnyConnect
client for Windows, which at the time of writing was version 3.1.00495
(anyconnect-win-3.1.00495-k9.pkg). This client is available for download
in our Cisco Download Section.
R1# copy tftp flash:
Address or name of remote host []? 192.168.9.74
Source filename []? anyconnect-win-3.1.00495-k9.pkg
Destination filename [anyconnect-win-3.1.00495-k9.pkg]?
Accessing tftp://192.168.9.74/anyconnect-win-3.1.00495-k9.pkg...
Loading anyconnect-win-3.1.00495-k9.pkg from 192.168.9.74 (via Virtual-Access3): !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[OK - 29806775 bytes]
29806775 bytes copied in 325.852 secs (90 kbytes/sec)
Generate RSA Keys
The next step is to generate our RSA 1024bit keys. The crypto key generate rsa command
depends on the hostname and ip domain-name commands. This crypto
command generates a Rivest, Shamir, Adleman (RSA) key pair, which
includes one public RSA key and one private RSA key, with a key modulus
size of 1024 (usually):
R1(config)# crypto key generate rsa label my-rsa-keys modulus 1024
The name for the keys will be: my-rsa-keys
% The key modulus size is 1024 bits
% Generating 1024 bit RSA keys, keys will be non-exportable...
[OK] (elapsed time was 1 seconds)
Note: The crypto key generate rsa command will not appear in the router’s running or startup configuration
Declare the Trustpoint & Create Self-Signed Certificate
Once complete, we need to declare the trustpoint that the router should use by using the command crypto pki trustpoint
command in global configuration mode. When declaring a trustpoint, we
can specify certain characteristics in its subcommands as shown in our
configuration:
crypto pki trustpoint my-trustpoint
enrollment selfsigned
subject-name CN=firewallcx-certificate
rsakeypair my-rsa-keys
!
crypto pki enroll my-trustpoint
% Include the router serial number in the subject name? [yes/no]: yes
% Include an IP address in the subject name? [no]: no
Generate Self Signed Router Certificate? [yes/no]: yes
Router Self Signed Certificate successfully created
Configure WebVPN Pool IP Addresses
WebVPN users will need to be assigned a
LAN IP address so they can communicate with our network. The following
command specifies the pool of ip addresses that will be assigned to our
users. This can be either part of our LAN network or a completely
different network. Since we have plenty of spare IP addresses, we’ll be
using a small portion of them:
ip local pool webvpn-pool 192.168.9.80 192.168.9.85
Note we have named this pool webvpn-pool.
Enable and Configure AAA Authentication for SSL VPN - Create User VPN Accounts
AAA stands for Authentication, Authorization and Accounting. We need to enable AAA in order to use it for our user authentication.
aaa new-model
aaa authentication login sslvpn local
username chris secret firewall.cx
aaa authentication login sslvpn local
username chris secret firewall.cx
It could be that AAA is already enabled on the router, in which case we only need to define an authentication list (we named it ‘sslvpn’) to use the router’s local user database for user authentication.
Enable WebVPN License
When the WebVPN service is enabled for
the first time on an ISR Generation 2 Cisco router (1900, 2900 &
3900 series), with the 15.x version IOS software or
newer, the router will prompt us to accept the End-User License
Agreement (EULA) before enabling and activating the service.
It is imperative to accept the EULA in order to proceed:
R1(config)# webvpn gateway Cisco-WebVPN-Gateway
PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS CAREFULLY. INSTALLING THE LICENSE OR
LICENSE KEY PROVIDED FOR ANY CISCO PRODUCT FEATURE OR USING SUCH
PRODUCT FEATURE CONSTITUTES YOUR FULL ACCEPTANCE OF THE FOLLOWING
TERMS. YOU MUST NOT PROCEED FURTHER IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO BE BOUND
BY ALL THE TERMS SET FORTH HEREIN.
……. Output omitted
Activation of the software command line interface will be evidence of
your acceptance of this agreement.
ACCEPT? [yes/no]: yes
LICENSE KEY PROVIDED FOR ANY CISCO PRODUCT FEATURE OR USING SUCH
PRODUCT FEATURE CONSTITUTES YOUR FULL ACCEPTANCE OF THE FOLLOWING
TERMS. YOU MUST NOT PROCEED FURTHER IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO BE BOUND
BY ALL THE TERMS SET FORTH HEREIN.
……. Output omitted
Activation of the software command line interface will be evidence of
your acceptance of this agreement.
ACCEPT? [yes/no]: yes
After accepting the EULA, we can verify the WebSSL VPN service is activated by issuing the show license all command. Usually StoreIndex 4 contains the WebSSL VPN reference:
R1# show license all
Notice the License Type mention: EvalRightToUse. This means that this is an evaluation license, a license to evaluate. At the end of the 8 ½ week evaluation period, the ISRG2 Cisco router license will not terminate the Web SSL_VPN license, and it will continue to work.
License Store: Primary License Storage
StoreIndex: 0 Feature: ipbasek9 Version: 1.0
License Type: Permanent
License State: Active, In Use
License Count: Non-Counted
License Priority: Medium
StoreIndex: 1 Feature: securityk9 Version: 1.0
License Type: Permanent
License State: Active, In Use
License Count: Non-Counted
License Priority: Medium
License Store: Built-In License Storage
StoreIndex: 0 Feature: securityk9 Version: 1.0
License Type: EvalRightToUse
License State: Inactive
Evaluation total period: 8 weeks 4 days
Evaluation period left: 8 weeks 4 days
Period used: 0 minute 0 second
License Count: Non-Counted
License Priority: None
StoreIndex: 4 Feature: SSL_VPN Version: 1.0
License Type: EvalRightToUse
License State: Active, In Use
Evaluation total period: 8 weeks 4 days
Evaluation period left: 8 weeks 3 days
Period used: 0 minute 1 second
Transition date: Nov 18 2012 22:14:16
License Count: 100/0 (In-use/Violation)
License Priority: Low
License Activation applies only to IOS 15.x version. The 12.4 series IOS does not require license activation
Configure and Enable WebVPN Gateway
After taking care of the licensing it’s
time to begin working on the WebVPN Virtual Gateway configuration. The
WebVPN Virtual Gateway enables the interface or IP address and port number to which the WebVPN service will ‘listen’ for incoming connections and also determines the encryption that will be used.
webvpn gateway Cisco-WebVPN-Gateway
Note: If the interface the WebVPN will be running on has a dynamic IP address, for example Dialer0 (ATM ADSL Interface), the ip address 74.200.90.5 port 443 command can be replaced with ip interface Dialer0 port 443, where ‘Dialer0’ is the dynamic interface.
ip address 74.200.90.5 port 443
ssl encryption rc4-md5
ssl trustpoint my-trustpoint
inservice
Note: There is a big bug that
causes Windows clients browser to report errors such as ""The page isn't
redirecting properly"" when trying to connect to the SSL WebVPN
Gateway. According to Cisco, this bug surfaces as a Windows machine
gets updated with security update KB2585542. Cisco's workaround solution is to use the rc4-md5 encryption instead, as shown above.
For those interested in reading up on this bug, Cisco has assigned bug ID: CSCtx38806 with the description "IOS SSL VPN fails to connect after microsoft security update KB258554".
For those interested in reading up on this bug, Cisco has assigned bug ID: CSCtx38806 with the description "IOS SSL VPN fails to connect after microsoft security update KB258554".
Configure and Enable SSL VPN Context
The SSL VPN context is used to configure a number of parameters for our Web VPN server, these include:
- Gateway and domain associated
- AAA user authentication method
- Group policy associated
- The remote user portal (web page)
- Limit number of WebVPN SSL user sessions
Most of these parameters are configured in our group policy. This group policy is then set as the default-group policy for our Web SSL VPN.
webvpn context Cisco-WebVPN
Let’s explain what all the above commands do:
title "Firewall.cx WebVPN - Powered By Cisco"
!
acl "ssl-acl"
permit ip 192.168.9.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.9.0 255.255.255.0
login-message "Cisco Secure WebVPN"
!
policy group webvpnpolicy
functions svc-required
functions svc-enabled
filter tunnel ssl-acl
svc address-pool "webvpn-pool" netmask 255.255.255.0
svc rekey method new-tunnel
svc split include 192.168.9.0 255.255.255.0
The webvpn context command is used to create a context named which we have named Cisco-WebVPN. The title command sets the text that will be displayed at the web browser’s Page Title and at the top of the login screen.
The acl “ssl-acl”
command configures the access lists for this context. It basically
governs what the web vpn users will have access to. We’ve provided our
webVPN users full access to the 192.168.9.0 network.
Our webvpn users' IP addresses have already been defined in the webvpn-pool
(192.168.9.80 to 192.168.0.85). Instead of typing each IP address
within that range into our ACL list we simply configure the router to
allow the 192.168.9.0 network as a source and destination in our VPN
tunnel. This ensures any IP in the 192.168.9.0 range assigned to our vpn
clients will have access to our LAN (192.168.9.0)
The login-message
command defines the text that will be shown in the login section of the
webvpn webpage. These messages are also visible in our WebVPN login
screen at the beginning of our article.
Since our webvpn pool is part of the same network we just set the 192.168.9.0 network as the source and destination IP address.
Next, we define a group policy. The group policy configures a number of important parameters. We named our group policy webvpnpolicy.
The functions svc-enabled & svc-required
commands ensure tunnel-mode is enabled and required. The combination of
these two commands will force the VPN user’s PC to start downloading
the AnyConnect software client as soon as he authenticates successfully.
This is called tunnel-mode operation.
Alternatively, without the svc-required
command, a webpage will be presented from which the user can directly
launch any configured web service in our webvpn portal or selectively
initiate tunnel-mode and start downloading the AnyConnect software
client.
Note: The acronym SVC stands for SSL VPN Client
The screenshot below shows the
AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client installation process. Keep in mind
that these screenshots apply after the complete configuration of our router's SSL WebVPN service:
During the installation, the user will
receive a number of prompts & security warnings about the publisher
and website’s certificate verification. Administrators and engineers
should instruct their VPN users to accept/allow the installation of the
certificates and software client when prompted.
Shortly after the acceptance of
certificates and confirming to the web browser to allow the installation
of the client, the AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client Downloader will
begin:
The filter tunnel ssl-acl command instructs the webvpn gateway to use ssl-acl access list to define the access vpn users will have.
The svc address-pool command defines the pool that will be used to assign IP addresses to our vpn users.
The svc rekey method new-tunnel specifies that the SVC establishes a new tunnel during SVC rekey.
The svc split command
enables split tunneling, instructing which network traffic will be sent
through the vpn tunnel. If this command is not included, vpn users will
not be allowed to access the Internet while connected to the vpn.
Configure Default Group Policy, Authentication List and Final Parameters
Now we will configure the policy we just created as the default policy, set the aaa authentication list (sslvpn) to be used for user authentication and maximum users for the service. Lastly, we enable our webvpn context:
default-group-policy webvpnpolicy
aaa authentication list sslvpn
gateway Cisco-WebVPN-Gateway
max-users 2
!
ssl authenticate verify all
!
url-list "rewrite"
inservice
The ssl authenticate verify all command
enables SSL configurations for backend server connections. While we are
not using any such backend services, it’s a good option to always have
enabled.
Supporting Multiple Group Policies on AnyConnect
Administrators and engineers who have worked with the classic Cisco IPSec VPN client will wonder how they can support multiple groups with different access rights using AnyConnect. The fact is that AnyConnect does support multiple groups, however it requires a radius server at the backend.AnyConnect on a Cisco router without a radius server will only allow support for one group policy.
Complete WebVPN SSL AnyConnect Configuration
Finally, below is the complete Web VPN SSL AnyConnect configuration of our router:
aaa new-model
aaa authentication login sslvpn local
!
username chris secret firewall.cx
!
crypto key generate rsa label my-rsa-keys modulus 1024
!
crypto vpn anyconnect flash0:/webvpn/anyconnect-win-3.1.00495-k9.pkg sequence 1
aaa authentication login sslvpn local
!
username chris secret firewall.cx
!
crypto key generate rsa label my-rsa-keys modulus 1024
!
crypto vpn anyconnect flash0:/webvpn/anyconnect-win-3.1.00495-k9.pkg sequence 1
!
ip local pool webvpn-pool 192.168.9.80 192.168.9.85
!
webvpn gateway Cisco-WebVPN-Gateway
ip address 74.200.90.5 port 443
ssl encryption rc4-md5
ssl trustpoint my-trustpoint
inservice
!
webvpn context Cisco-WebVPN
title "Firewall.cx WebVPN Gateway"
!
acl "ssl-acl"
permit ip 192.168.9.0 255.255.255.0 192.168.9.0 255.255.255.0
login-message "Cisco Secure WebVPN"
!
policy group webvpnpolicy
functions svc-required
functions svc-enabled
filter tunnel ssl-acl
svc address-pool "webvpn-pool" netmask 255.255.255.0
svc rekey method new-tunnel
svc split include 192.168.9.0 255.255.255.0
default-group-policy webvpnpolicy
aaa authentication list sslvpn
gateway Cisco-WebVPN-Gateway
max-users 2
!
ssl authenticate verify all
!
url-list "rewrite"
inservice
This concludes our Cisco SSL VPN AnyConnect configuration for Cisco IOS Routers.
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