The current operational status of the VPN connection: o 'up': the IKE-SA and all IPsec-SAs are up; o 'down': the IKE-SA and all IPsec-SAs are down; o 'negotiation': key exchange and algorithm negotiation is in progress (or, as responder, waiting to be contacted for that purpose); o 'constructing': the IKE-SA is up, but at least one IPsec-SA is not established so far; o 'dormant': waiting for a precondition to be fulfilled before connection setup, e.g.: - a dynamically assigned IP address; - successful hostname resolution; - assignment of a valid system time. o 're-keying': key exchange is in progress after timeout of lifetime has occured, either IKE or IPSEC;