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Multi-Cloud Networking

IPsec

Captured 2026-08-03 from one CE of this deployment.

The CE builds IPsec tunnels to F5 regional edges. If they are down, the site is isolated from the global network regardless of how healthy it looks locally.

ipsec-status

Section titled “ipsec-status”
Terminal window
{"command":["ipsec-status"]}
Security Associations (2 up, 0 connecting):
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io[8]: ESTABLISHED 70 minutes ago, 10.0.1.4[ver.mcn-ce-ha-eastus01.<tenant>.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io]...<public-ip>[ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io]
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{9}:  INSTALLED, TUNNEL, reqid 65542, ESP in UDP SPIs: ffff1700_i ffffce10_o
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{9}:   10.0.1.4/32 === <public-ip>/32
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io[7]: ESTABLISHED 70 minutes ago, 10.0.1.4[ver.mcn-ce-ha-eastus01.<tenant>.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io]...<public-ip>[ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io]
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{8}:  INSTALLED, TUNNEL, reqid 65541, ESP in UDP SPIs: ffff1160_i ffff1e70_o
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{8}:   10.0.1.4/32 === <public-ip>/32

The first line is the answer: Security Associations (2 up, 0 connecting). Anything in connecting is a tunnel that is trying and failing.

Each SA names the regional edge it terminates on — ny8-nyc, dc12-ash are F5 POP codes — so this also tells you which edges the site is homed to.

ESTABLISHED with an age, followed by INSTALLED, TUNNEL, is a healthy pair: the first is the IKE session, the second the child SA that actually carries traffic. An IKE session established with no installed child SA is the interesting failure.

ipsec-statusall

Section titled “ipsec-statusall”

The same information plus per-SA byte and packet counters, rekey timers and the negotiated algorithms.

Terminal window
{"command":["ipsec-statusall"]}
Status of IKE charon daemon (strongSwan 5.9.13, Linux 5.14.0-687.20.1.el9_8.x86_64, x86_64):
  uptime: 78 minutes, since Aug 03 15:12:39 2026
  malloc: sbrk 3428352, mmap 0, used 2019536, free 1408816
  worker threads: 11 of 16 idle, 5/0/0/0 working, job queue: 0/0/0/0, scheduled: 20
  loaded plugins: charon aes des rc2 sha2 sha1 mgf1 random nonce x509 revocation constraints pubkey pkcs1 pkcs7 pkcs12 pgp dnskey sshkey pem openssl pkcs8 fips-prf gmp curve25519 xcbc cmac hmac kdf gcm drbg attr kernel-pb kernel-netlink resolve socket-default stroke vici updown xauth-generic error-notify counters
Listening IP addresses:
  10.0.2.4
  10.0.3.4
  100.64.255.1
  10.0.1.4
  169.254.100.1
  169.254.10.13
  169.254.254.103
Connections:
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:  10.0.1.4[4500]...<public-ip>[4500]  IKEv1/2, dpddelay=3s
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:   local:  [ver.mcn-ce-ha-eastus01.<tenant>.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io] uses any authentication
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:    cert:  "O=Volterra, OU=ves-system, CN=ike"
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:   remote: [ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io] uses any authentication
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:   child:  dynamic === 0.0.0.0/0 TUNNEL, dpdaction=start
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:  10.0.1.4[4500]...<public-ip>[4500]  IKEv1/2, dpddelay=3s
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:   local:  [ver.mcn-ce-ha-eastus01.<tenant>.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io] uses any authentication
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:    cert:  "O=Volterra, OU=ves-system, CN=ike"
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:   remote: [ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io] uses any authentication
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io:   child:  dynamic === 0.0.0.0/0 TUNNEL, dpdaction=start
Security Associations (2 up, 0 connecting):
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io[8]: ESTABLISHED 70 minutes ago, 10.0.1.4[ver.mcn-ce-ha-eastus01.<tenant>.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io]...<public-ip>[ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io]
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io[8]: IKEv2 SPIs: 82b18316b81c76c1_i* 4a79a978d19b3304_r, any reauthentication in 2 hours
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io[8]: IKE proposal: AES_GCM_16_128/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_256/MODP_3072
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{9}:  INSTALLED, TUNNEL, reqid 65542, ESP in UDP SPIs: ffff1700_i ffffce10_o
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{9}:  AES_GCM_16_128, 0 bytes_i, 0 bytes_o, rekeying disabled
ver.ny8-nyc.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{9}:   10.0.1.4/32 === <public-ip>/32
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io[7]: ESTABLISHED 70 minutes ago, 10.0.1.4[ver.mcn-ce-ha-eastus01.<tenant>.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io]...<public-ip>[ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io]
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io[7]: IKEv2 SPIs: 7ec7d8a8178881fb_i* e683f63a81425ff5_r, any reauthentication in 2 hours
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io[7]: IKE proposal: AES_GCM_16_128/PRF_HMAC_SHA2_256/MODP_3072
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{8}:  INSTALLED, TUNNEL, reqid 65541, ESP in UDP SPIs: ffff1160_i ffff1e70_o
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{8}:  AES_GCM_16_128, 0 bytes_i, 0 bytes_o, rekeying disabled
ver.dc12-ash.ves-io.<uuid>.tenant.int.ves.io{8}:   10.0.1.4/32 === <public-ip>/32

Use it to distinguish “the tunnel is up” from “the tunnel is carrying traffic”. A tunnel established for hours with near-zero bytes is up and unused, which usually means the problem is routing rather than the tunnel.