Oracle Solaris 11.2 supports two types of authentication material for Internet Key Exchange (IKE), preshared keys and public key certificates. A preshared key is a string of hex or ASCII characters that only two IKE systems know. The keys are called preshared because both endpoints must know the value of the key before the IKE exchange. This key must be part of the IKE configuration on both systems. The preshared key is used in the generation of the IKE payloads, which make up the packets that implement the IKE protocol. The system that processes these IKE payloads uses the same key to authenticate the payloads that it receives.
The preshared key is not exchanged between the IKE endpoints by using the IKE protocol. Typically, the key is shared with the peer system over a different medium, such as a phone call. The preshared key on the peers that use this authentication method must be identical. The keys are stored in a file on each system.

Duration: 10 minutes

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Release Date: 25-MAR-2015