Network Security Principles and Practices

Introduction to IKE

IKE or Internet key exchange is the protocol responsible for negotiating the IPsec tunnel characteristics between two IPsec peers. IKE's responsibilities in the IPsec protocol include

• Negotiating protocol parameters

• Exchanging public keys

• Authenticating both sides

• Managing keys after the exchange

IKE solves the problems of manual and unscalable IPsec implementation by automating the entire key-exchange process. This is one of IPsec's critical requirements.

IKE, like IPsec, is also a combination of three different protocols:

• SKEME— Provides a mechanism for using public key encryption for authentication purposes.

• Oakley— Provides a mode-based mechanism for arriving at an encryption key between two IPsec peers.

• ISAKMP— Defines ...