ISAKMP (Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol) is a protocol defined by RFC 2408 for establishing Security Associations (SA) and cryptographic keys in an Internet environment. ISAKMP only provides a framework for authentication and key exchange and is designed to be key exchange independent; protocols such as Internet Key Exchange and Kerberized Internet Negotiation of Keys provide authenticated keying material for use with ISAKMP.[1]
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ISAKMP defines the procedures for authenticating a communicating peer, creation and management of Security Associations, key generation techniques, and threat mitigation (e.g. denial of service and replay attacks). As a framework,[1] ISAKMP is typically utilized by IKE for key exchange, although other methods have been implemented such as Kerberized Internet Negotiation of Keys. A Preliminary SA is formed using this protocol; later a fresh keying is done.
ISAKMP defines procedures and packet formats to establish, negotiate, modify and delete Security Associations. SAs contain all the information required for execution of various network security services, such as the IP layer services (such as header authentication and payload encapsulation), transport or application layer services, or self-protection of negotiation traffic. ISAKMP defines payloads for exchanging key generation and authentication data. These formats provide a consistent framework for transferring key and authentication data which is independent of the key generation technique, encryption algorithm and authentication mechanism.
ISAKMP is distinct from key exchange protocols in order to cleanly separate the details of security association management (and key management) from the details of key exchange. There may be many different key exchange protocols, each with different security properties. However, a common framework is required for agreeing to the format of SA attributes, and for negotiating, modifying, and deleting SAs. ISAKMP serves as this common framework.
ISAKMP can be implemented over any transport protocol. All implementation must include send and receive capability for ISAKMP using UDP on port 500.
The IPsec Services Service in Microsoft Windows handles this functionality.
The KAME project implements ISAKMP for BSD and Linux operating systems, and thus also for pfSense. In legacy installations, the name of the application that implements ISAKMP is racoon.