IPSEC_VERIFY(8)

💖 NAME 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the IPSEC_VERIFY(8) manual — the manual name is right there, and yes, this page lives in the Executable programs section. The page's name is ipsec_verify, and its whole job is: see if the IPsec subsystem has been installed correctly. Periodt. 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

The invocation is literally:

ipsec verify

That's it — one line, zero drama for the synopsis. ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

ipsec verify examines the local system for a number of common system faults and configuration mistakes. It's giving system checkup energy, and honestly? obsessed. 💅

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

Storytime: this page was written originally for the Linux FreeS/WAN project <https://www.freeswan.org> by Michael Richardson. Then it was rewritten in python by Paul Wouters. We love a glow-up that keeps the lore. ✨

💀 BUGS 💀

Okay, tea alert 😭: Verify was converted from shell to perl to python, and the MASQUERADING/NAT rule tests still need to be ported. Also, the ss command is around in various non-intuitive and buggy versions, causing some false-positives with respect to listening on UDP port 500 and 4500. See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=829630. No cap, that's the bug. 💀

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Paul Wouters — and the author section also says placeholder to suppress warning, which is giving accidental main character energy. Not me editing that out, bestie; it stays. 💖

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cute sign-off: this page is from libreswan, dated 10/19/2026 — mwah, go check your IPsec install, bestie 🎀💜