Provided by: openconnect_9.12-3_amd64 
NAME
openconnect - Multi-protocol VPN client, for Cisco AnyConnect VPNs and others
SYNOPSIS
openconnect [--config configfile] [-b,--background] [--pid-file pidfile]
[-c,--certificate cert] [-e,--cert-expire-warning days] [-k,--sslkey key]
[-C,--cookie cookie] [--cookie-on-stdin] [--compression MODE] [-d,--deflate]
[-D,--no-deflate] [--force-dpd interval] [--force-trojan interval]
[-F,--form-entry form:opt=value] [-g,--usergroup group] [-h,--help]
[--http-auth methods] [--external-browser browser] [-i,--interface ifname]
[-l,--syslog] [--timestamp] [--passtos] [-U,--setuid user] [--csd-user user]
[-m,--mtu mtu] [--base-mtu mtu] [-p,--key-password pass] [-P,--proxy proxyurl]
[--proxy-auth methods] [--no-proxy] [--libproxy] [--key-password-from-fsid]
[-q,--quiet] [-Q,--queue-len len] [-s,--script vpnc-script] [-S,--script-tun]
[-u,--user name] [-V,--version] [-v,--verbose] [-x,--xmlconfig config]
[--authgroup group] [--authenticate] [--cookieonly] [--printcookie]
[--cafile file] [--disable-ipv6] [--dtls-ciphers list] [--dtls12-ciphers list]
[--dtls-local-port port] [--dump-http-traffic] [--no-system-trust] [--pfs]
[--no-dtls] [--no-http-keepalive] [--no-passwd] [--no-xmlpost] [--non-inter]
[--passwd-on-stdin] [--protocol proto] [--token-mode mode]
[--token-secret {secret[,counter]|@file}] [--reconnect-timeout seconds]
[--resolve host:ip] [--sni host] [--servercert sha1] [--useragent string]
[--version-string string] [--local-hostname string] [--os string] [--server]
[https://]host[:port][/group]
DESCRIPTION
The program openconnect connects to VPN servers which use standard TLS/SSL, DTLS, and ESP
protocols for data transport.
It was originally written to support Cisco "AnyConnect" VPN servers, and has since been
extended with experimental support for Juniper Network Connect (--protocol=nc),
Junos/Ivanti Pulse VPN servers (--protocol=pulse), PAN GlobalProtect VPN servers
(--protocol=gp), F5 Big-IP VPN servers (--protocol=f5), Fortinet Fortigate VPN servers
(--protocol=fortinet), and Array Networks SSL VPN servers (--protocol=array).
The connection happens in two phases. First there is a simple HTTPS connection over which
the user authenticates somehow - by using a certificate, or password or SecurID, etc.
Having authenticated, the user is rewarded with an authentication cookie which can be used
to make the real VPN connection.
The second phase uses that cookie to connect to a tunnel via HTTPS, and data packets can
be passed over the resulting connection. When possible, a UDP tunnel is also configured:
AnyConnect uses DTLS, while Juniper and GlobalProtect use UDP-encapsulated ESP. The UDP
tunnel may be disabled with --no-dtls, but is preferred when correctly supported by the
server and network for performance reasons. (TCP performs poorly and unreliably over TCP-
based tunnels; see http://sites.inka.de/~W1011/devel/tcp-tcp.html.)
OPTIONS
--config=CONFIGFILE
Read further options from CONFIGFILE before continuing to process options from the
command line. The file should contain long-format options as would be accepted on
the command line, but without the two leading -- dashes. Empty lines, or lines
where the first non-space character is a # character, are ignored.
Any option except the config option may be specified in the file.
-b,--background
Continue in background after startup
--pid-file=PIDFILE
Save the pid to PIDFILE when backgrounding
-c,--certificate=CERT [,--mca-certificate=CERT]
Use SSL client certificate CERT which may be either a file name or, if OpenConnect
has been built with an appropriate version of GnuTLS, a PKCS#11 URL.
The --mca-certificate option sets the secondary certificate for multi-certificate
authentication (according to Cisco's terminology, the SSL client certificate is
called the "machine" certificate, and the second certificate is called the "user"
certificate).
-e,--cert-expire-warning=DAYS
Give a warning when SSL client certificate has DAYS left before expiry
-k,--sslkey=KEY [,--mca-key=KEY]
Use SSL private key KEY which may be either a file name or, if OpenConnect has been
built with an appropriate version of GnuTLS, a PKCS#11 URL.
The --mca-key option sets the private key for the secondary certificate (see
--mca-certificate).
-C,--cookie=COOKIE
Use authentication cookie COOKIE.
--cookie-on-stdin
Read cookie from standard input.
-d,--deflate
Enable all compression, including stateful modes. By default, only stateless
compression algorithms are enabled.
-D,--no-deflate
Disable all compression.
--compression=MODE
Set compression mode, where MODE is one of stateless, none, or all.
By default, only stateless compression algorithms which do not maintain state from
one packet to the next (and which can be used on UDP transports) are enabled. By
setting the mode to all stateful algorithms (currently only zlib deflate) can be
enabled. Or all compression can be disabled by setting the mode to none.
--force-dpd=INTERVAL
Use INTERVAL as Dead Peer Detection interval (in seconds). This will cause the
client to use DPD at the specified interval even if the server hasn't requested it,
or at a different interval from the one requested by the server.
DPD mechanisms vary by protocol and by transport (TLS or DTLS/ESP), but are all
functionally similar: they enable either the VPN client or the VPN server to
transmit a signal to the peer, requesting an immediate reply which can be used to
confirm that the link between the two peers is still working.
-g,--usergroup=GROUP
Set the URL path of the initial HTTPS connection to the server.
With some protocols, this path may function as a login group or realm, hence the
naming of this option. For example, the following invocations of OpenConnect are
equivalent:
openconnect --usergroup=loginPath vpn.server.com
openconnect https://vpn.server.com/loginPath
-F,--form-entry=FORM:OPTION[=VALUE]
Provide authentication form input, where FORM and OPTION are the identifiers from
the form and the specific input field, and VALUE is the string to be filled in
automatically. For example, the standard username field (also handled by the --user
option) could also be provided with this option thus: --form-entry
main:username=joebloggs.
If VALUE is not specified, this option will cause a hidden form field to be treated
as a standard text-input field.
This option should not be used to enter passwords. --passwd-on-stdin should be
used for that purpose. Not only will this option expose the password value via the
OpenConnect process's command line, but unlike --passwd-on-stdin this option will
not recognize the case of an incorrect password, and stop trying to re-enter it
repeatedly.
-h,--help
Display help text
--http-auth=METHODS
Use only the specified methods for HTTP authentication to a server. By default,
only Negotiate, NTLM and Digest authentication are enabled. Basic authentication
is also supported but because it is insecure it must be explicitly enabled. The
argument is a comma-separated list of methods to be enabled. Note that the order
does not matter: OpenConnect will use Negotiate, NTLM, Digest and Basic
authentication in that order, if each is enabled, regardless of the order specified
in the METHODS string.
--external-browser=BROWSER
Set BROWSER as the executable used by OpenConnect to handle the authentication
process with gateways that support the single-sign-on-external-browser
authentication method.
-i,--interface=IFNAME
Use IFNAME for tunnel interface
-l,--syslog
After tunnel is brought up, use syslog for further progress messages
--timestamp
Prepend a timestamp to each progress message
--passtos
Copy TOS / TCLASS of payload packet into DTLS and ESP packets. This is not set by
default because it may leak information about the payload (for example, by
differentiating voice/video traffic).
-U,--setuid=USER
Drop privileges after connecting, to become user USER
--csd-user=USER
Drop privileges during execution of trojan binary or script (CSD, TNCC, or HIP).
--csd-wrapper=SCRIPT
Run SCRIPT instead of the trojan binary or script.
--force-trojan=INTERVAL
Use INTERVAL as interval (in seconds) for repeat execution of Trojan binary or
script, overriding default and/or server-set interval.
-m,--mtu=MTU
Request MTU from server as the MTU of the tunnel.
--base-mtu=MTU
Indicate MTU as the path MTU between client and server on the unencrypted network.
Newer servers will automatically calculate the MTU to be used on the tunnel from
this value.
-p,--key-password=PASS [,--mca-key-password=PASS]
Provide passphrase for certificate file, or SRK (System Root Key) PIN for TPM
--mca-key-password provides the passphrase for the secondary certificate (see
--mca-certificate).
-P,--proxy=PROXYURL
Use HTTP or SOCKS proxy for connection. A username and password can be provided in
the given URL, and will be used for authentication. If authentication is required
but no credentials are given, GSSAPI and automatic NTLM authentication using
Samba's ntlm_auth helper tool may be attempted.
--proxy-auth=METHODS
Use only the specified methods for HTTP authentication to a proxy. By default,
only Negotiate, NTLM and Digest authentication are enabled. Basic authentication is
also supported but because it is insecure it must be explicitly enabled. The
argument is a comma-separated list of methods to be enabled. Note that the order
does not matter: OpenConnect will use Negotiate, NTLM, Digest and Basic
authentication in that order, if each is enabled, regardless of the order specified
in the METHODS string.
--no-proxy
Disable use of proxy
--libproxy
Use libproxy to configure proxy automatically (when built with libproxy support)
--key-password-from-fsid
Passphrase for certificate file is automatically generated from the fsid of the
file system on which it is stored. The fsid is obtained from the statvfs(2) or
statfs(2) system call, depending on the operating system. On a Linux or similar
system with GNU coreutils, the fsid used by this option should be equal to the
output of the command:
stat --file-system --printf=%i\\n $CERTIFICATE
It is not the same as the 128-bit UUID of the file system.
-q,--quiet
Less output
-Q,--queue-len=LEN
Set packet queue limit to LEN packets. The default is 32. A high value may allow
better overall bandwidth but at a cost of latency. If you run Voice over IP or
other interactive traffic over the VPN, you don't want those packets to be queued
behind thousands of other large packets which are part of a bulk transfer.
This option sets the maximum inbound and outbound packet queue sizes in OpenConnect
itself, which control how many packets will be sent and received in a single batch,
as well as affecting other buffering such as the socket send buffer (SO_SNDBUF) for
network connections and the OS tunnel device.
Ultimately, the right size for a queue is "just enough packets that it never quite
gets empty before more are pushed to it". Any higher than that is simply
introducing bufferbloat and additional latency with no benefit. With the default of
32, we are able to saturate a single Gigabit Ethernet from modest hardware, which
is more than enough for most VPN users.
If OpenConnect is built with vhost-net support, it will only be used if the queue
length is set to 16 or more. This is because vhost-net introduces a small amount of
additional latency, but improves total bandwidth quite considerably for those
operating at high traffic rates. Thus it makes sense to use it when the user has
indicated a preference for bandwidth over latency, by increasing the queue size.
-s,--script=SCRIPT
Invoke SCRIPT to configure the network after connection. Without this, routing and
name service are unlikely to work correctly. The script is expected to be
compatible with the vpnc-script which is shipped with the "vpnc" VPN client. See
https://www.infradead.org/openconnect/vpnc-script.html for more information. This
version of OpenConnect is configured to use /usr/share/vpnc-scripts/vpnc-script by
default.
On Windows, a relative directory for the default script will be handled as starting
from the directory that the openconnect executable is running from, rather than the
current directory. The script will be invoked with the command-based script host
cscript.exe.
-S,--script-tun
Pass traffic to 'script' program over a UNIX socket, instead of to a kernel tun/tap
device. This allows the VPN IP traffic to be handled entirely in userspace, for
example by a program which uses lwIP to provide SOCKS access into the VPN.
--server=[https://]HOST[:PORT][/PATH]
Define the VPN server as a simple HOST or as an URL containing the HOST and
optionally the PORT number and the PATH; with some protocols, the path may function
as a login group or realm, and it may equivalently be specified with --usergroup.
As an alternative, define the VPN server as non-option command line argument.
-u,--user=NAME
Set login username to NAME
-V,--version
Report version number
-v,--verbose
More output (may be specified multiple times for additional output)
-x,--xmlconfig=CONFIG
XML config file
--authgroup=GROUP
Select GROUP from authentication dropdown or list entry.
Many VPNs require a selection from a dropdown or list during the authentication
process. This selection may be known as authgroup (on Cisco VPNs), realm (Juniper,
Pulse, Fortinet), domain (F5), and gateway (GlobalProtect). This option attempts
to automatically fill the appropriate protocol-specific field with the desired
value.
--authenticate
Authenticate to the VPN, output the information needed to make the connection in a
form which can be used to set shell environment variables, and then exit.
When invoked with this option, OpenConnect will not actually create the VPN
connection or configure a tunnel interface, but if successful will print something
like the following to stdout:
COOKIE='3311180634@13561856@1339425499@B315A0E29D16C6FD92EE...'
HOST='10.0.0.1'
CONNECT_URL='https://vpnserver.example.com'
FINGERPRINT='469bb424ec8835944d30bc77c77e8fc1d8e23a42'
RESOLVE='vpnserver.example.com:10.0.0.1'
Thus, you can invoke openconnect as a non-privileged user (with access to the
user's PKCS#11 tokens, etc.) for authentication, and then invoke openconnect
separately to make the actual connection as root:
eval `openconnect --authenticate https://vpnserver.example.com`;
[ -n ["$COOKIE"] ] && echo ["$COOKIE"] |
sudo openconnect --cookie-on-stdin $CONNECT_URL --servercert $FINGERPRINT --resolve $RESOLVE
Earlier versions of OpenConnect produced only the HOST variable (containing the
numeric server address), and not the CONNECT_URL or RESOLVE variables.
Subsequently, we discovered that servers behind proxies may not respond correctly
unless the correct DNS name is present in the connection phase, and we added
support for VPN protocols where the server URL's path component may be significant
in the connection phase, prompting the addition of CONNECT_URL and RESOLVE, and the
recommendation to use them as described above. If you are not certain that you are
invoking a newer version of OpenConnect which outputs these variables, use the
following command-line (compatible with most Bourne shell derivatives) which will
work with either a newer or older version:
sudo openconnect --cookie-on-stdin ${CONNECT_URL:-$HOST} --servercert $FINGERPRINT ${RESOLVE:+--resolve=$RESOLVE}
--cookieonly
Fetch and print cookie only; don't connect (this is essentially a subset of
--authenticate).
--printcookie
Print cookie to stdout before connecting (see --authenticate for the meaning of
this cookie)
--cafile=FILE
Additional CA file for server verification. By default, this simply causes
OpenConnect to trust additional root CA certificate(s) in addition to those trusted
by the system. Use --no-system-trust to prevent OpenConnect from trusting the
system default certificate authorities.
--no-system-trust
Do not trust the system default certificate authorities. If this option is given,
only certificate authorities given with the --cafile option, if any, will be
trusted automatically.
--disable-ipv6
Do not advertise IPv6 capability to server
--dtls-ciphers=LIST
Set OpenSSL ciphers to support for DTLS
--dtls12-ciphers=LIST
Set OpenSSL ciphers for Cisco's DTLS v1.2
--dtls-local-port=PORT
Use PORT as the local port for DTLS and UDP datagrams
--dump-http-traffic
Enable verbose output of all HTTP requests and the bodies of all responses received
from the server.
--pfs Enforces Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS). That ensures that if the server's long-term
key is compromised, any session keys established before the compromise will be
unaffected. If this option is provided and the server does not support PFS in the
TLS channel the connection will fail.
PFS is available in Cisco ASA releases 9.1(2) and higher; a suitable cipher suite
may need to be manually enabled by the administrator using the ssl encryption
setting.
--no-dtls
Disable DTLS and ESP
--no-http-keepalive
Version 8.2.2.5 of the Cisco ASA software has a bug where it will forget the
client's SSL certificate when HTTP connections are being re-used for multiple
requests. So far, this has only been seen on the initial connection, where the
server gives an HTTP/1.0 redirect response with an explicit Connection: Keep-Alive
directive. OpenConnect as of v2.22 has an unconditional workaround for this, which
is never to obey that directive after an HTTP/1.0 response.
However, Cisco's support team has failed to give any competent response to the bug
report and we don't know under what other circumstances their bug might manifest
itself. So this option exists to disable ALL re-use of HTTP sessions and cause a
new connection to be made for each request. If your server seems not to be
recognizing your certificate, try this option. If it makes a difference, please
report this information to the openconnect-devel@lists.infradead.org mailing list.
--no-passwd
Never attempt password (or SecurID) authentication.
--no-external-auth
Prevent OpenConnect from advertising to the server that it supports any kind of
authentication mode that requires an external browser.
Some servers will force the client to use such an authentication mode if the client
advertises it, but fallback to a more "scriptable" authentication mode if the
client doesn't appear to support it.
--no-xmlpost
Do not attempt to post an XML authentication/configuration request to the server;
use the old style GET method which was used by older clients and servers instead.
This option is a temporary safety net, to work around potential compatibility
issues with the code which falls back to the old method automatically. It causes
OpenConnect to behave more like older versions (4.08 and below) did. If you find
that you need to use this option, then you have found a bug in OpenConnect. Please
see https://www.infradead.org/openconnect/mail.html and report this to the
developers.
--allow-insecure-crypto
The ancient, broken 3DES and RC4 ciphers are insecure; we explicitly disable them
by default. However, some still-in-use VPN servers can't do any better.
This option enables use of these insecure ciphers, as well as the use of SHA1 for
server certificate validation.
--non-inter
Do not expect user input; exit if it is required.
--passwd-on-stdin
Read password from standard input
--protocol=PROTO
Select VPN protocol PROTO to be used for the connection. Supported protocols are
anyconnect for Cisco AnyConnect (the default), nc for experimental support for
Juniper Network Connect (also supported by most Junos/Ivanti Pulse servers), pulse
for experimental support for Junos/Ivanti Pulse, gp for experimental support for
PAN GlobalProtect, f5 for experimental support for F5 Big-IP, fortinet for
experimental support for Fortinet Fortigate, and array for experimental support for
Array Networks SSL VPN.
See https://www.infradead.org/openconnect/protocols.html for details on features
and deficiencies of the individual protocols.
OpenConnect does not yet support all of the authentication options used by Pulse,
nor does it support Host Checker/TNCC with Pulse. If your Junos/Ivanti Pulse VPN is
not yet supported with --protocol=pulse, then --protocol=nc may be a useful
fallback option.
--token-mode=MODE
Enable one-time password generation using the MODE algorithm. --token-mode=rsa
will call libstoken to generate an RSA SecurID tokencode, --token-mode=totp will
generate an RFC 6238 time-based password, and --token-mode=hotp will generate an
RFC 4226 HMAC-based password. Yubikey tokens which generate OATH codes in hardware
are supported with --token-mode=yubioath. --token-mode=oidc will use the provided
OpenIDConnect token as an RFC 6750 bearer token.
--token-secret={ SECRET[,COUNTER] | @FILENAME }
The secret to use when generating one-time passwords/verification codes. Base
32-encoded TOTP/HOTP secrets can be used by specifying "base32:" at the beginning
of the secret, and for HOTP secrets the token counter can be specified following a
comma.
RSA SecurID secrets can be specified as an Android/iPhone URI or a raw numeric CTF
string (with or without dashes).
For Yubikey OATH the token secret specifies the name of the credential to be used.
If not provided, the first OATH credential found on the device will be used.
For OIDC the secret is the bearer token to be used.
FILENAME, if specified, can contain any of the above strings. Or, it can contain a
SecurID XML (SDTID) seed.
If this option is omitted, and --token-mode is "rsa", libstoken will try to use the
software token seed saved in ~/.stokenrc by the "stoken import" command.
--reconnect-timeout=SECONDS
After disconnection or Dead Peer Detection, keep trying to reconnect for SECONDS.
The default is 300 seconds, which means that openconnect can recover a VPN
connection after a temporary network outage lasting up to 300 seconds.
--resolve=HOST:IP
Automatically resolve the hostname HOST to IP instead of using the normal resolver
to look it up.
--sni=HOST
When creating new TLS connections, always present the hostname HOST as the SNI
(Server Name Indication) in place of the correct hostname, which will still be sent
in the HTTP 'Host:' header, and expect the peer's certificate to match the SNI
rather than the correct hostname. This may be useful for Domain Fronting, by which
some filtered or censored Internet connections can be bypassed.
Note that sending different values for the SNI and 'Host:' header violates HTTP
standards and is prevented by many cloud hosting providers.
--servercert=HASH
Accept server's SSL certificate only if it matches the provided fingerprint. This
option implies --no-system-trust, and may be specified multiple times in order to
accept multiple possible fingerprints.
The allowed fingerprint types are SHA1, SHA256, and PIN-SHA256. They are
distinguished by the 'sha1:', 'sha256:' and 'pin-sha256:' prefixes to the encoded
hash. The first two are custom identifiers providing hex encoding of the peer's
public key, while 'pin-sha256:' is the RFC7469 key PIN, which utilizes base64
encoding. To ease certain testing use-cases, a partial match of the hash will also
be accepted, if it is at least 4 characters past the prefix.
--useragent=STRING
Use STRING as 'User-Agent:' field value in HTTP header.
Some VPN servers may require specific values matching those sent by proprietary VPN
clients in order to successfully authenticate or connect. For example, when
connecting to a Cisco VPN server, --useragent 'AnyConnect Windows 4.10.06079' or
--useragent 'Cisco AnyConnect VPN Agent for Windows 2.2.0133', or when connecting
to a Pulse server, --useragent 'Pulse-Secure/9.1.11.6725'.
--version-string=STRING
Use STRING as the software version reported to the head end. (e.g.
--version-string '2.2.0133')
--local-hostname=STRING
Use STRING as 'X-CSTP-Hostname:' field value in HTTP header. For example
--local-hostname 'mypc', will advertise the value 'mypc' as the suggested hostname
to point to the provided IP address.
--os=STRING
OS type to report to gateway. Recognized values are: linux, linux-64, win,
mac-intel, android, apple-ios. Reporting a different OS type may affect the
dynamic access policy (DAP) applied to the VPN session. If the gateway requires
CSD, it will also cause the corresponding CSD trojan binary to be downloaded, so
you may need to use --csd-wrapper if this code is not executable on the local
machine.
SIGNALS
In the data phase of the connection, the following signals are handled:
SIGINT / SIGTERM
performs a clean shutdown by logging the session off, disconnecting from the
gateway, and running the vpnc-script to restore the network configuration.
SIGHUP disconnects from the gateway and runs the vpnc-script, but does not log the session
off; this allows for reconnection later using --cookie.
SIGUSR1
writes progress message with detailed connection information and statistics.
SIGUSR2
forces an immediate disconnection and reconnection; this can be used to quickly
recover from LAN IP address changes.
LIMITATIONS
See https://www.infradead.org/openconnect/contribute.html for various features that we
wish OpenConnect had, and https://www.infradead.org/openconnect/protocols.html for
information on the quirks and limitations of the individual VPN protocols.
SEE ALSO
ocserv(8)
AUTHORS
David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
OPENCONNECT(8)