Configuring a route-based mesh topology

Depending on which authentication type you choose to secure your topology, there may be operations you must perform before creating the topology.

Follow the steps below to create a route-based VPN topology:

  1. In Configuration > Topologies, click on Add a VPN topology at the top of the screen and select Mesh.
    button Add a VPN topology
  2. In the window that opens, select Route-based VPN and click on Create the topology.
  3. Enter a name. A description is optional.
  4. Choose the authentication type in the next step.
  5. Select the encryption profile. The SMC server offers pre-configured profiles. Create your customized profiles in Configuration > Encryption profiles. Refer to the Stormshield Network User Configuration Manual for more information on encryption profile options.
  6. If you need to edit the default network pool for IPsec VTIs, expand the Advanced properties section. For more information on the VTI network pool field, refer to the section Editing the VTI network pool.VTI network pool field
  7. Select your topology peers in the next step. You can select connected or offline firewalls. You can also select firewalls that have never connected, on the condition that you have set a default custom or dynamic contact address in the System > IPsec VPN tab in the firewall settings.
    To ensure optimal performance, you can select up to 50 peers by default. The environment variable SMC_VPN_MESH_ROUTE_BASED_MAX_PEERS_INT makes it possible to configure this limit. This limitation is valid only for mesh VPN topologies.
  8. In the next step, double-click on the line of a firewall to open the Peers and VTI window:
  9. Click on Apply to close the window.
  10. Click on Apply again at the end of step 4/4 to generate the topology.
  11. If the topology contains firewalls with network configurations that SMC does not manage, SMC will offer to download the IPsec interface .csv configuration file. IPsec interfaces must be created manually on these firewalls. Refer to the section Defining IPsec VTIs on SNS firewalls for further information. For firewalls with network configurations that SMC manages, SMC will automatically create the IPsec interfaces. Refer to Configuring IPsec interfaces (VTI). The .csv file indicates in the "created_by_smc" column whether interfaces were automatically created by SMC.
  12. Deploy the configuration on the firewalls in the topology. The VPN configuration belongs to the firewall's global policy.

Your topology is still not operational at this stage. Follow the instructions in Defining IPsec VTIs on SNS firewalls if the topology includes firewalls with network configurations that SMC does not manage and Defining the traffic routing policy to complete the process of setting up a route-based VPN topology.