IBM Power Ideas Portal


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM Power Systems products, including IBM i. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:

Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,

Post your ideas

  1. Post an idea.

  2. Get feedback from the IBM team and other customers to refine your idea.

  3. Follow the idea through the IBM Ideas process.


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

Add a new idea Subscribe
Status Submitted
Workspace AIX
Created by Guest
Created on Aug 14, 2026

RELATED IDEAS

Add IPSEC tunnel features to support Ontap connection

All AIX customers requiring IPSEC tunnels to modern nfs fileservers

ONTAP currently supports three fixed IPsec cipher suites:

SUITEB_GCM256: ike=aes256-sha384-ecp384! and esp=aes256gcm16-ecp384 (default)
SUITEB_GMAC256: ike=aes256-sha384-ecp384! and esp=aes256gmac-ecp384
SUITE_AESCBC: ike=aes256-sha512-modp4096! and esp=aes256-sha512-modp4096

AIX 7.3 IKEv2 cannot be configured to use SHA-384 (HMAC_SHA2_384_192), which rules out both SUITEB suites.

The only remaining option is SUITE_AESCBC, which uses HMAC_SHA2_512_256 matching AIX – but hardcodes MODP_4096 (Group 16) as the DH group,
while AIX defaults to ECP_384 (Group 20).

No single ONTAP cipher suite today offers:
AES_CBC_256 / HMAC_SHA2_512_256 / PRF_HMAC_SHA2_512 / ECP_384

This combination is needed for native interoperability with AIX 7.3 IKEv2 without requiring the AIX administrator to reconfigure the DH group on the AIX side.

Root cause confirmed via source code:
security/ipsec/ipsec_shared/src/IpsecConstants.cc
security/ipsec/ipsec_mgwd/src/tables/IpsecConfUtil.cc

Request: Add a fourth cipher suite (e.g. SUITE_AESCBC_ECP) that produces the following strongSwan proposal:
ike=aes256-sha512-ecp384!
esp=aes256-sha512-ecp384,aes256-sha512!

This would allow ONTAP to negotiate successfully with AIX 7.3 using its native default IKEv2 DH group (ECP_384 / Group 20) and SHA-512 integrity, with no configuration changes required on the AIX side.
 

Idea priority High

By clicking the "Post Comment" or "Submit Idea" button, you are agreeing to the IBM Ideas Portal Terms of Use.
Do not place IBM confidential, company confidential, or personal information into any field.